DS SolidWorks CEO: The New. The Next. The Never Before

On the first day of SolidWorks World 2017, Gian Paolo Bassi, CEO of Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp. (DS SolidWorks) sat down with Asia Pacific Media for group interview. During the interview Gian put innovation into perspective. Below are excerpts from the interview.

According to Gian, the future is a concept they take very seriously. Not just the future of SolidWorks capabilities, but what’s coming in the design industry itself. He feels that by providing its customers with a more connected, collaborative, and efficient way of designing, the company is helping them usher in the next generation of amazing products and innovations to change the world.

A shift from time-to-market to innovation

Gian explained, “In the past our customers in the Asia Pacific region are asking how to become more efficient. They are mostly interested in efficiency, on-time to market and how to design and produce their product in possible short amount of time. We found it interesting and this is what we did. We tried to shorten the time to market, we created tools that were targeted to their goals.”

He added, “But in the last few years we noticed consistently that more and more customers are asking us for a different thing. They did not see a lot of value in shortening the time to market anymore; because guess what, everybody is becoming very efficient in time-to-market strategies. Our customers all over the world think that the competitive advantage comes only from one thing, and that is innovation. So we started dramatically shifting our message and focus. Instead of efficiency which is already a given nowadays with the help of automation, we decided to change it on how can we help our customers be innovative. The market today requires innovation. This is not just about providing tools to solve problems, but how combining creativity and execution is key to making great designs happen.”

Gian said that to be more innovative, they need to bring the power of the people and collaboration into the equation. “This is why we are evolving to platform-thinking, because it is only with the platform that you can bring together products and technology with people and the marketplace. You need the platform if you want to store and analyse big data. The technology used to analyse big data is high end and very expensive. If you make it part of the platform, then it becomes more available.”

Design automation

Making the search capabilities part of your software, for example, brings the high end and sophisticated technology to everyone. Design optimization is one tool DS SolidWorks want to make available to all engineers, and they do so by integrating it into the platform.

DS SolidWorks is finding new ways to close the gap between design and manufacturing. Currently, there’s a large amount of human involvement that creates inefficiencies in the design to manufacturing process. One way to solve this problem is by enabling machines to better read our minds and fully understand our designs. This will minimise mistakes and create a continuum to mend the fracture between design and manufacturing.

Another way to close the gap is by transforming the manufacturing process to become more like the buying experience on Amazon. Smart machines will read and understand your work, then provide you with access to information on quality, delivery time, and cost. This approach represents how DS SolidWorks envision the future of transforming bits to atoms in SolidWorks.

The assembly process must be smarter and faster with computers that actually “aid” you by providing intelligent suggestions based on the power of analytics and big data.

The company aims to provide more guidance in geometry. As a result of new ways to manufacture, such as building microstructures, complex design challenges are increasingly becoming best suited for computers to tackle. These specific types of designs involve thousands of tiny elements, requiring massive amounts of meticulous work. It’s impossible for sketch and extrude features to effectively support this type of work, so we must provide you with the best alternatives.

Education of future engineers

Gian said, “Our strategy is to be even more pervasive in education by offering CAD modelling to kids. Our program “Apps for Kids” helps to teach young kids on how to use 3D modelling, because we need more children, especially young girls, to go into engineering. The value is not just giving them the software for free, but in developing them into better engineers by engaging in their curriculum and their projects.

”We have a very rich and deep education program. Today, 82% of the top educational institutions in the world are standardised in SolidWorks for the engineering studies and research departments. Most students entering school now, or the engineering competitions such as the DARPA Challenge, Formula SAE, or Mini Baja, use SolidWorks to design their robots or vehicles,” he added.

“Our education line does more than just offer our software platform at a discount price. We also assist in creating the curriculum, supporting the schools with installation and upgrade, and providing the teaching materials. We provide all of the tools necessary to make the class successful. We offer certification as well in SolidWorks so that students graduate not only with a degree, but are certified in SolidWorks. This is essential for them to find a job.”

Design portfolio

DS SolidWorks continue to work tirelessly to build the best design portfolio possible and give its customers ample choice of tools and technologies. Its goal is to give fresh perspectives to take on its customers projects for the coming year and help them understand how better to meet customers’ engineering and design needs.

Gian reminded us that it’s the stories they hear from customers and from its communities that really inspire them and keep propelling forward. The future of innovation is not only part of design, but it is also thinking about new business models that come with it.

In closing, he delivered his message loud and clear, Gian said that it is time for, The New. The Next. The Never Before. The company is taking the next step to not only out run its competition but outsmart and amaze.