Siemens Digital Industries Software
(SDIS) held its analyst/media event
at the GM Renaissance in Detroit in
April—the first face-to-face analyst/media
event for the company since 2019.
Cedrik Neike, CEO of Siemens Digital
Industries and managing board member of
Siemens AG, focused on what actual problems
Siemens is solving for its customers
by combining the real and digital worlds
through not only a digital transformation,
but through building and implementing
digital twins that enable their customers
to design, manufacture, and service their
products using a digital twin to continuously
optimize the product and the production
process. Neike presented several
actual customer stories from industries like
biotech and pharma to food and beverage
to battery manufacturing. He pointed out
that the most successful companies today
are an integrated combination of hardware
and software, an efficient blend of IT and
OT. He noted that companies that started
out as pure software companies like Microsoft,
Amazon, Google, etc. are now highly
invested in hardware, manufacturing, and
operation. And that, he said, is where Siemens
is today, from automation hardware
and sensors to the edge and the cloud.
Neike also pointed out that an average
Industry 4.0 factory generates two thousand
terabytes of data per month, and most
of that data is unused. Siemens’ vision and
strategy is to use the entire digital thread
across the design/manufacture/service
lifecycle to build connected digital twins
that begin to use this data to truly integrate
IT and OT and beyond to the entire
supply chain of industries. He maintains
that Siemens is well on the way to making
the transition from being an automation
company and manufacturer to becoming a
tech company.
Tony Hemmelgarn, CEO of Siemens
Software, pointed out that the very nature
of work has changed, and companies are
changing their business models to reflect
this. Companies want technology and solutions
that enable them to become more
agile, flexible, capable of reaching new
markets, and equipped with a field work
force with tools that make them smarter
and more adaptable. One thing that Siemens
offers their customers is tools and
technology to implement comprehensive
executable digital twins.
He pointed out
that IT/OT convergence is being re-imagined
and accomplished through the implantation
of digital twins used to optimize
production processes.
He also noted that their customer Lockheed-
Martin will use Siemens Xcelerator
open integrated cloud services as the platform
for all new aircraft development programs
going forward. This will allow them
to fully integrate their design/build/operate/
maintain development lifecycle and
employ a model-based systems engineering
for process improvement.
More than 97% of the Xcelerator portfolio
is available in the cloud and is offered
as a service through subscription, as well
as on-premises to meet customer requirements.
The digital thread connectivity of
Xcelerator is enabling “shift-left engineering”
where design engineers can apply
downstream data, which includes Internet
of Things and artificial intelligence data in
the lifecycle to gain insight into a faster
and more optimized design process. This
is enabling companies to shift from being
product companies to service companies.
Xcelerator enables companies to remotely
connect their design organizations and
operate in real-time across the design/test/
validate product development lifecycle.
