CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
May 2005
Company News
ProSTEP iViP Symposium 2005: Most Successful Symposium Since the Founding of the Association
With over 360 participants from 18 countries, the ProSTEP iViP Symposium 2005, held on April 20 and 21 at the Ludwig Erhard Haus in Berlin, broke the record set last year.
Under the motto "Creating Collaborative Environments: Scalable - Effective - Secure", the program of events comprised 30 presentations and seven well-attended workshops over the course of two days. The event was framed by two keynote addresses given at the beginning and at the end of the symposium which brought the future directly into the plenary hall. Both keynote speakers were representatives of two of the world's largest electronics corporations - two corporations that also acted as host and sponsor respectively, namely Siemens and IBM.
The event was kicked off by Dr. Bernhard Nottbeck, Vice President Corporate Technology at Siemens AG, who presented the results of the "Horizons2020"" study in a lecture entitled "Visions for a Coming Generation - Creating Collaborative Environments". Siemens commissioned TNS Infratest Munich, a business research company, to conduct the study, which was brought to a successful conclusion in October 2004. Scenarios are developed in the study as food for thought, which Siemens is now translating into "Pictures of the Future" with the aim of visualizing a variety of possible futures.
Dr. Nottbeck was able to present listeners with one sure prediction: The digital product of the future will no longer be a mere geometric model of the mechanics but rather a "digital master" representing the overall functionality of a system. The objective is the virtual representation of the future product with all its capabilities and attributes so that, ultimately, series production can be launched without the need for a physical prototype.
The lecture prepared the ground for the subsequent speakers and workshops. Expansion of the term "product lifecycle management" (PLM) to include the entire lifecycle and the extended virtual enterprise proved to be the main focal point for speakers from industry and the field of research. The integration of the various disciplines, their processes and their data - particularly the integrated development of mechatronic systems - emerged as the second main focus of attention with regard to the future face of industry.
PLM is not just "PDM with a little bit extra added", as Prof. Martin Eigner, chair of Virtual Product Development at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, stated in his keynote speech. "Today's processes are not designed to cope with the rapid increase in the proportion of electronics and software comprising added value." In his view, the solution calls for cross-enterprise engineering including vertical, collaborative project management in the network, communication on the basis of a truly comprehensive virtual product and the coexistence of new and existing technologies.
Under these conditions, standardization as advocated by the ProSTEP iViP Association must be fast, timely, innovative and performed at an international level. Therefore, focus in the future will be placed on Best Practices, freely available specifications and effective teamwork involving industry, standardization bodies and research institutes.
The workshops, which were conducted in parallel to the series of lectures, served a double purpose. On the one hand, they provided a platform for evaluating the results of the Association's project groups. On the other hand, they served as a breeding ground for proposals relating to new activities. A new project group should be established to address the points requirements management, product structure and configuration management in mechatronics development. The workshop on the exchange of visualization data made it clear that more representatives from the disciplines electronics and software need to be brought on board the ProSTEP iViP boat. The workshop "Knowledge-based Engineering (KBE) in the Cross-enterprise Development Process" highlighted the need for a new project group that can deal with this topic in more depth.
Prof. Frank-Lothar Krause, member of the Board of the ProSTEP iViP Association and head of Virtual Product Development at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK), presented the results of the study "Engineering 2010-Setting the Course for Innovative Engineering", which was conducted in 2004 by six research institutes on behalf of the Association. Several of the trends observed include the following: Digital mock-up will be succeeded by functional mock-up; virtual reality requires better interfaces between humans and machines in order to achieve a greater level of acceptance; collaborative project engineering will provide the impetus for project-specific data management.
In his concluding keynote speech, Martin Jetter, managing director of IBM Deutschland GmbH, drew upon concrete numbers from IBM's history over the last 20 years as evidence of the dire need for a transformation within industry. As a shining star with a six-billion-dollar profit in the mid-eighties, the corporation had to suffer through a slump in 1989 with an eight-billion-dollar loss and a 50-percent reduction in staff to 220,000 before it could again post a six-billion-dollar profit at the end of the nineties with a headcount of 320,000. In the words of Martin Jetter: "Savings cannot be achieved without making considerable investments. Industry in Germany needs a similar willingness to transform itself to the willingness that our near demise gave us back then."
In the foreword of the proceedings, Heinz-Simon Keil, Siemens AG, stated: "As a platform for strategic discussion and collaboration with regard to harmonized procedures, the Association provides an ideal opportunity to contribute to actively shaping the future." The Symposium provided impressive confirmation of this assertion.
Further information and individual presentations for download
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