prostep ivip Symposium 2019: Network of Trust for Migration to Digital Change

Darmstadt, May 2019 – Collaboration in the Age of Smart Products and Services was the motto of this year’s symposium, which was sponsored by PLM vendor Aras and automotive & industry supplier Schaeffler. In the age of smart products and services, collaboration is more important than ever to rise to the challenges of digital transformation.  What this entails for PLM system landscapes and processes was discussed by about 680 executives from user companies and IT vendors as well as representatives from science and research at the prostep ivip Symposium 2019 in Stuttgart. Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE), Digital Twin and Artificial Intelligence (AI) were the central topics on this year’s agenda, reflecting also the activities of the association in the area of standardization.

For many years the association has worked intensively for the establishment of best practices and standards in collaborative, model-based systems development. New member The Boeing Company was represented by its own keynote: Russ Benson, Vice President IT Product Systems at Boeing, explained the importance of standards for the digital transformation journey of the aerospace manufacturer. 

Karl-Heinz Streibich, President of the German Academy of Science and Technology (acatech), acknowledged in his keynote the pioneering role of the prostep ivip association as a network of trust.  Prostep ivip’s success in the area of standardizing Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) contributed greatly to the global success of export champion Germany, said Streibich. These networks of trust offer the opportunity to create out of Germany and Europe the next generation of industrial, digital champions. The basis is provided by digital platforms, becoming operation systems for entire industries all over the world. To catch up with the great American digital champions, Streibich suggested to collaborate more closely and openly when it comes to developing digital platforms and shared data rooms.

Openness and standards are indispensable for being able to react with agility and flexibility to the uncertainties of the digital future. Leading automotive manufacturers like BMW, Daimler or Volks-wagen and large automotive suppliers have therefore started to take the Code of PLM Openness (CPO) as basis for the definition of their PLM strategy, the planning of the PLM structure and increasingly for their procurement decisions. The CPO has demonstrated in numerous initiatives its usefulness in optimizing applications, reducing IT costs and improving the collaboration with IT vendors and system integrators, said Dr. Markus Fricke from the BMW Group, who gave participants together with Dr. Dietmar Trippner from dreiconsult an update on the current status of the CPO implementation.

In order to close the circle between product and product life in the field, all information has to be maintained in PLM but not necessarily in one system, explained Dirk Spindler, Head F&E Processes, Methods & Tools at Schaeffler, in his keynote. Schaeffler uses the PLM platform from Aras, to link information from different IT systems in one engineering cockpit, designed to support the future MBSE process.z

Peter Schroer, Chief Executive Officer at Aras, emphazised in his keynote the importance of a robust and reliable platform for the flexibility of the entire PLM architecture. It allows the IT infrastructure as well as the applications built upon it to be replaced when necessary. The platform approach is the answer to the technical burden of the Legacy systems, the maintenance of which consumes a lot of money that is no longer available for real technical innovation.

MBSE was the leading topic at the symposium this year, not only in the presentations by the working groups of the association, but also in many user presentations. Most companies are still at the beginning when it comes to the implementation of appropriate tools and methods in PLM processes. One of the pioneers is CLAAS, manufacturer of agricultural technology, offering their customers besides networked smart agricultural machinery complete farm management systems. In his final keynote, Nico Michels, Chief Digital Engineering at CLAAS, described how his company implemented Systems Engineering and MBSE on the basis of the 3DX platform from Dassault Systèmes and how employees were introduced to the subject.

The next prostep ivip Symposium will be held from May 12 - 13, 2020, (pre evening event May 11) again at the ICS in Stuttgart.