Sustainable transformation of asset-intensive industries thanks to virtual twin experiences

Das­sault Sys­tèmes and IBM announced an exten­sion of their long-stand­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with the sig­na­ture of a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing com­bin­ing their tech­nolo­gies to address the sus­tain­abil­i­ty chal­lenges affect­ing asset-inten­sive industries.

In 2022, sus­tain­abil­i­ty was iden­ti­fied by 58 per­cent of Ener­gy and Resources CEOs as their great­est chal­lenge, with 51 per­cent of them also con­sid­er­ing it as a busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ty that will dri­ve growth. At the same time, 44 per­cent of CEOs cit­ed a lack of insights from data as a prob­lem. (Source: IBV 2022 CEO — Ener­gy & Resources insights)

Today com­pa­nies are con­front­ed with not only ris­ing ener­gy prices but also sup­ply chain and oper­a­tional dis­rup­tions. These dis­rup­tions are due to mul­ti­ple fac­tors includ­ing geopo­lit­i­cal sit­u­a­tions, an aging work­force, and cli­mate-relat­ed risks. In response to these chal­lenges, deploy­ing new infra­struc­ture quick­ly and effi­cient­ly as well as opti­miz­ing the oper­a­tions of exist­ing assets and extend­ing their life­cy­cle is cru­cial.  A company’s abil­i­ty to har­ness action­able, data-dri­ven insights is key to accel­er­ate the trans­for­ma­tion of assets that are safer, more effi­cient and more sustainable.

To help com­pa­nies ensure busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity while achiev­ing their sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals, Das­sault Sys­tèmes and IBM have decid­ed to com­bine Das­sault Sys­tèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE plat­form and vir­tu­al twin expe­ri­ences with IBM’s solu­tions for Asset Man­age­ment, Resources Opti­miza­tion, Envi­ron­men­tal Risk Man­age­ment and ESG governance.

Any orga­ni­za­tion includ­ing con­sult­ing firms or engi­neer­ing com­pa­nies will be able to bet­ter under­stand exist­ing assets and there­fore pro­vide the trans­for­ma­tion­al roadmap to mod­ern­ize and opti­mize ener­gy grids, wind farms, air­ports, water dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tems, trans­porta­tion and mobil­i­ty, cities and datacenters.

A vir­tu­al twin expe­ri­ence of an asset is a data-enriched, evolv­ing 3D mod­el that repli­cates real­i­ty with sci­en­tif­ic accu­ra­cy and is used to test and improve the asset’s per­for­mance vir­tu­al­ly before doing so phys­i­cal­ly.  Com­bin­ing vir­tu­al twin expe­ri­ences of equip­ment, infra­struc­ture, val­ue net­works and ter­ri­to­ries with solu­tions for opti­miz­ing mete­o­ro­log­i­cal and green IT data, for exam­ple, will help to:

• Improve col­lab­o­ra­tion and knowl­edge shar­ing between sys­tem engi­neer­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and oper­a­tions teams.
• Make faster, safer, and more sus­tain­able oper­a­tional deci­sions for assets, peo­ple, and processes.
• Inte­grate com­pli­ance con­sid­er­a­tions with respect to indus­try and envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions from the engi­neer­ing phase to the main­te­nance phase.

Over the com­ing months, Das­sault Sys­tèmes and IBM will work togeth­er to struc­ture the details of their joint offer­ing. Both com­pa­nies will first tar­get own­ers and oper­a­tors of water / ener­gy dis­tri­b­u­tion and ener­gy trans­mis­sion projects, wind farms oper­a­tors, air­ports and IT infra­struc­ture projects that focus on datacenters.

Exam­ples use cas­es that ben­e­fit from this col­lab­o­ra­tion in Ener­gy and Civil­ian Infra­struc­ture mar­kets include:

• Com­pute and opti­mize glob­al car­bon foot­print dur­ing dat­a­cen­ter oper­a­tions by automat­ing the actions that proac­tive­ly deliv­er the most effi­cient use of com­pute, stor­age, and net­work resources.
• Enhance air­port oper­a­tions by lever­ag­ing asset health and main­te­nance infor­ma­tion, along with glob­al mete­o­ro­log­i­cal and fore­cast­ing data
• Com­bine opti­miza­tion and sim­u­la­tion capa­bil­i­ties to improve the place­ment of phys­i­cal assets for wind farms.
• Opti­mize util­i­ties oper­a­tions and ren­o­va­tions includ­ing elec­tri­cal trans­mis­sion, water sup­ply and sanitation

“There is no bet­ter time to revi­tal­ize the IBM Das­sault Sys­tèmes long-term Part­ner­ship, as solv­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty chal­lenges requires col­lab­o­ra­tion across an advanced ecosys­tem of busi­ness part­ners. We are con­vinced that enrich­ing vir­tu­al twins with real world data will enable com­pa­nies to improve their oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy and reduce their envi­ron­ment impact espe­cial­ly in asset inten­sive indus­tries,” com­ment­ed Ana Paula de Jesus Assis, Chair & Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, EMEA, IBM. “Through­out our own his­to­ry, IBM has sought to be at the fore­front of mak­ing our world a bet­ter place and our 2030 Net-Zero ambi­tion con­firms our com­mit­ment. We are devel­op­ing a com­pre­hen­sive and dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed port­fo­lio of sus­tain­abil­i­ty soft­ware and con­sult­ing ser­vices, in con­cert with our ecosys­tem of partners.”

“IBM has long been a val­ued part­ner of Das­sault Sys­tèmes, and we share a deep com­mit­ment to accel­er­at­ing the sus­tain­able trans­for­ma­tion of indus­tries.  This next step aims to help our cus­tomers reduce their envi­ron­men­tal foot­print in sec­tors that are urgent pri­or­i­ties in the con­text of today’s ener­gy cri­sis,” said Flo­rence Verze­len, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Indus­try, Mar­ket­ing and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, Das­sault Sys­tèmes.  “The com­bi­na­tion of IBM’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty soft­ware and exper­tise with our 3DEXPERIENCE plat­form, sus­tain­abil­i­ty port­fo­lio and vir­tu­al twin expe­ri­ences can offer unpar­al­leled ways to address sys­temic chal­lenges in achiev­ing net zero ambi­tions and dri­ving the cir­cu­lar economy.”