SOLIDWORKS Innovation Day 2019 Media Tour Kicks off to a Great Start!

Our SOLIDWORKS Innovation Day 2019 AP South media tour kicked off in a big way in Sydney on September 19, 2018. I am proud to have unveiled the new features of SOLIDWORKS 2019 to our media friends in Australia and look forward to working closely with our partners and customers to continually scale new heights in design and engineering innovation.

We are living in a time when technological change is radically reshaping the world economy and shaking up the foundations of industries like never before. It is now more pressing than ever for businesses to prepare their operations, processes and workforce for the future. Here are some excerpts from my presentation to the media during the SOLIDWORKS Innovation Day 2019 launch in Sydney on what the new experience economy entails:

“We are here today to talk about the future, the trends which are undoubtedly taking us forward and opening a vast amount of opportunities for those who want to play in tomorrow’s business arena. In order to better understand the future, we would need to have a quick look at the rear view mirrors.

Since our inception, almost four decades ago we at Dassault Systèmes have been in the business of helping global manufacturers to better data driven decisions making. The evolution of what we today as smart manufacturing has been driven by the commonly known business influences, as well as a true passion to innovate by our R&D teams and our customers who are at the forefront of their respective industries.

As consumers no longer carry around separate devices such as a notepad, camera, walkman, cash wallet and dictaphone to resolve siloed needs, engineers of today expect a similar connected real-time experience in their professional roles.

With this attention to the entire lifecycle of a product, we are able to influence not just how designers interact with each other, but also with their colleagues in other departments, their supply chain, customer base, regulators and any other stakeholders. By digitally combining the realms of Product, Nature and Life, we create an experience which can be measured not just on price and productivity, but importantly, the innovation factor. When the stakeholders of a business can collaborate instantly, they are in a better position to deliver outcomes that make a game changing impact. By building up a virtual model of our world, testing and trying our ideas until we strike the right balance, we can hedge the bet that our design in the real world will exceed performance criteria with minimum waste.

This is the Dassault Systèmes customer journey which is transitioning businesses from the traditional to the new experience economy, to help them carve out their leadership by giving them the tools to shift paradigms in their marketspace.

We do understand that this is a significant undertaking which requires more than access to the best-in-class technology. Knowing how to use technology and analyse the right data requires a robust business transformation plan. We have therefore partnered with a number of local organisations, namely our Value Added Resellers (VARs), InterCAD part of Central Innovation, represented here today by Mike Russell, as well as Cadspace, Invenio and N C CADCAM Systems, who work closely with us to ensure that SOLIDWORKS customers are well guided in assessing their current and future digital needs and given access to the best-in-class technology to realize their vision. These partners are also experts in advising our customers in delivering continuous improvement in their business processes to ensure that they stay ahead of their competition and in executing their technology roadmap.

This leads us to the next key point on my agenda – cultivating the workforce of the future. In order to better address the needs of the transforming industry, we work with academic institutions, such as Western Sydney University, to integrate our technology in the evolving curriculum and invite industry partners at the forefront of the new experience economy, such as Markforged and Trakka Australia, to provide mentorship and guidance on the type of future-ready skills that graduates require for the future of innovation. We are already dealing with a generation of digital natives with powerful social networks at the palm of their hands, able to engage in a video conversation with literally anyone anywhere in the world, and spread the word-of-mouth in an instant. Imagine what these talented individuals, who are able to break records at an international solar car racing competition, can do in a fully digitalized, connected business with the best-in-class technologies for innovation. Then imagine the frustration that they may face if they are given a paper binder with drawings to review.

The digital revolution is pushing businesses to up their game. To produce innovative products, businesses need a digitally capable workforce to communicate and collaborate effectively with an increasingly globalized supply chain network and to optimize best-in-class technology that will power their industry. We live in a world of accelerated innovation; constant skills and technological upgrades is going to be the norm, rather than the exception, in this brave new digital era.”