“First, there is the trend of mass customization. We are all responsible for that when we buy products on Amazon,” he said. “People want products that are very, very close to their needs, and they want to be able to customize them. The first problem our manufacturing people have is that they have a massive amount of highly diversified products. This is not good; it is really complex.”
“Second, what we saw during COVID times is that [the mass-customization issue] hasn’t been solved, particularly on the supply chain side.”
Vendroux noted that if you add in the volatility of the energy market and continued political uncertainties, there is more and more pressure on the supply chain.
“Third, in manufacturing and operations, because of COVID, we see people getting less and less attracted to that space at work. We are lacking talent,” he said.
Vendroux likened manufacturing in the past to being in the army — a generally unattractive world in which it could be difficult for a young person to develop and grow.
Modeling twins
“We have a need for speed and agility in that very difficult environment. At Dassault Systèmes, the way we approach this is what we call the virtual twin experience,” he said. “When you want to tackle a very difficult problem, when you are a scientist, the first thing you do is try to model the problem. Modeling is the first pillar of a virtual twin. That means we can model a station, a line, a shop, a full supply chain, and we can play around with it, trying to understand the problem it may face and trying to optimize it.”
Pour l'article complet : Three imminent threats to manufacturing – and one response to them all | Engineering.com
