Some years ago, I worked for a high-tech equipment manufacturer where the key to selling products was innovation. This company invested heavily in R&D, had both design and manufacturing engineering staffs, and devoted enormous energy to constructing physical prototypes of new products. Most of the prototype testing was uneventful, but occasionally a test lab would get blown up. The mess was expensive and time-consuming. It culminated with engineering having to go back to the drawing board. The experience was discouraging, and I'm sure that many engineers and executives reading this can identify with this.
It's no wonder that, after 20 years of cyberpresence and virtualization, product development is going virtual, too. This new process is not necessarily being launched over the public Internet, where there is the constant threat of intellectual property theft. But it does use IP (Internet protocol) over VPN-secured networks that can engage the best engineering minds from around the world in innovation and problem solving.
Here are some examples:
The automotive, aerospace, and defense engineering industries are using virtualized design and modeling to test concepts for more complex, higher-quality products.
The electronics industry is employing virtual product development to model complex designs and simulations for electronic and semiconductor devices.
The pharmaceutical industry is engaging in virtual analysis of properties and combinations for drug design and development.
For IT, the move to virtual product development, modeling, and simulation implies an incorporation of high-performance computing (HPC) in enterprise IT, whether that HPC is acquired through a cloud or, as most enterprises ultimately will prefer, through on-board HPC computing clusters that are both affordable and scalable.
To provide a more microscopic view: Keven Hofstetter, a research program manager at Caterpillar Inc., gave a presentation last year on how his company had revised its product development process to make it more virtual.
Caterpillar previously used a 10-year cycle for revising its end-to-end product line, Hofstetter said in the presentation. Today, aggressive regulatory deadlines on equipment emissions no longer make a 10-year product upgrade cycle practical. To redesign and bring products to market quicker, his company uses virtual product modeling and simulations, which makes it easy and cost-effective to detect and correct flaws. It is also easy to bring remote engineering teams together when needed, thanks to Internet connectivity.
Because so much of its product development can be accomplished quickly and inexpensively (before the product is cast in iron), Caterpillar has set as its goal the ability to fully simulate products in a virtual context. This will continue to reduce design costs while speeding products to market.
Guus Dekkers, CIO of EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company NV) and Airbus, agrees with that concept. Dekkers told HPCwire this year that the aeronautics industry needs to preload and virtualize its product development process.
[Engineers] no longer limit themselves to simulate an aircraft's behavior as a static model, but use the availability of vast high performance computing power to calculate the optimal scenario under different, partially dynamic situations. This allows them to optimize important safety, environmental and performance criteria like fuel-burn, noise, aerodynamics optimizations and performance prediction for multiple scenario's, which has been impossible in the current precision up until recently. This clearly allows us to design better aircraft.
Ultimately, virtual product design leads us to a safer, more collaborative process that brings more value to manufacturers and their customers.
I'm not sure your statement is entirely accurate, Mary. The reason cloud has been so successful is that it allows for a quicker and cheaper way to run the same old client-server model. New, innovative products often create new, innovative markets, but are much smaller than the traditional, existing markets. If I had to choose between supporting the trendy 5 percent of the market, or the dull-and-boring 65 percent of the market, I suspect I'd aim the vast majority of my funding at meeting the needs of my paying customers. It all comes down to knowing your customers, and meeting their needs in order to be successful. Oh, and just for the record: more and more companies are dropping virtualization like a bad habit, because it's simply not stable and fast enough to meet their needs. HPC, on the other hand, looks like a home run. Now, where can I get my hands on a dual quad-core laptop? ; -)
Good point, nimantha. Without new IT products and services, there would be no new efficiencies and therefore no fresh demand. The cloud services market is a great example; with new services have come a rush of demand and more supply.
I'd be interested in seeing how the adoption of HPC-based virtualization for R&D compares directly with the old-fashionend internal lab model. Given your examples, Mary, it seems the savings accrue largely in the area of development/turnaround time.
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
The average yearly tuition cost for brick-and-mortar colleges and universities in the US today is more than $20,000, an expense that has increased 1,120 percent since 1978. By comparison, students of all ages can often earn an online education for one fourth of this annual cost -- and more businesses are starting to acknowledge online degrees.
Companies need to take advantage of new technologies to simplify interfaces, improve capabilities, and enhance back-office processes. But they can't upgrade their Websites too often.
A survey by JD Powers found that customer interest in product features is lessening as phones evolve. Rather than features, price is driving purchases, and that change could have a dramatic impact on how IT departments secure these devices.
A recent release of the popular TweetDeck app for Twitter power-users gives new life to software that had previously taken a wrong turn. Here's a quick walk-through of the new TweetDeck, to show you why it should be at the top of your Twitter toolkit.
The very low-tech "scrum" project technique introduces "crowd talking" to projects and also sets the entire crowd to problem solving. So far, these new social-media-style meetings appear to have supercharged project execution.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
Email This
