Global Product Data Interoperability Summit 2021: topics ranged from PDM and PLM to wider enterprise automation and supply chain integration.

Global Product Data Interoperability Summit 2021: 5 half-days to cover 5 tracks. (Image credit: GPDIS.)

This year’s Global Product Data Interoperability Summit (GPDIS) occurred virtually from September 13-17, 2021. The event was packed with content across five half-days and covered a wide array of product development and data lifecycle management topics. This year’s theme was “Data readiness in a new age of digital collaboration.”

Historically, the GPDIS event has occurred annually and is meant to function as a “communications hub for industry principals to foster knowledge through the exchange of ideas, solutions, and methods” and is “a place to build consensus on the data, tool and process standards based on the experience of liked minded professionals.” It’s a forum deeply rooted in the aerospace and defense industry.

The event was moderated by an industry council, partners and event sponsors, and co-organized by representatives from Boeing, Parker Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, CIMdata, Elysium, and PDES Inc. The event’s five core tracks were as follows:

1. Development and Operations (DevOps): how to deploy technical changes efficiently, iteratively and securely
2. Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE): how to track enterprise data maturity, release and change as a product is being developed or used in field operations
3. Computer Assisted Manufacturing and Supply Chain (CAMSC): how to bring simulation automation to the shop floor and how manufacturing suppliers can collaboratively create value
4. Emergent Technologies/Industry Transformation (ET/IT): how to implement new tools and platforms that can bring new levels of automation and integration to the enterprise
5. 3D Model-Based Definition (3D MBD): how to leverage 3D master data, as well as automate downstream consumption, 3D-driven decision-making, and the related data lifecycle

Tracks 2, 3 and 6 above refer to maximizing value realization from integrated product and operating data and processes, whereas tracks 1 and 4 relate to solution implementation and adoption of enterprise platforms and tools to make this happen.

In this post, I review and discuss some of the key messages and examples shared by event presenters, as well as share my perspectives on how these topics address the typical implementation challenges of delivering successful digital integration.

It is interesting to reiterate that the GPDIS event is rich in content, with most presentations and session recordings publicly available for review on the GPDIS website—including content from previous years, covering years 2014 to 2021 (refer to reference links below, provided courtesy of GPDIS and its partners). Furthermore, this year’s event took stock of the impact of the global pandemic, which resulted in an increased rise of digital transformation awareness and required enablement.

GPDIS 2021 focused on the theme of “Data readiness in a new age of digital collaboration.” (Image credit: GPDIS.)

As GPDIS puts it on its website:

The events of the past year have transformed the role of technology in enabling organizations to continue operating and adapting to new challenges and opportunities of working. Virtual operations and remote collaboration have both made incredible gains in only a short time. How did the PLM ecosystem fare? In some cases, digital transformation was accelerated bringing new challenges and new opportunities. In other cases, organizations stopped. Our digital ecosystem for product lifecycle management is being stretched and extended in new ways and pressed into service rapidly. Data that was previously siloed is being exposed and made available through new technologies and new ways of sharing across domains.

Talking about digital collaboration and more specifically product data exchange, the following three questions were asked as a premise to the GDPIS event and were discussed across the 5 tracks:

1. Is this data ready for primetime?
2. Is the provider giving data that is clear, concise, and valid?
3. Is the receiver taking data directly into their business seamlessly with all the context and definition they need to succeed?

This track was all about deploying technical changes efficiently, iteratively and securely. DevOps is a standard framework for technical change implementation, covering continuous delivery, integration, testing, data integrity checking, automated and secure deployment of improvements across the data process technology stack, and supplemented with training, organizational and skill alignment.

Vinod Subramanian, senior product manager of IT&DA with Boeing, and David Votaw, “Automation Wizard” with Northrop Grumman, elaborated on the evolution of software product development and bringing security into the DevOps pipeline, aka DevSecOps. This is especially relevant for the defense industry when implementing enterprise platforms and putting security policies and tools at the core of every industrialization discipline. Expected benefits include embedded security testing and “shift left” validation as part of the development process for accelerated product delivery and upstream compliance.

Furthermore, Keith Conway, Dev*Ops cyber architect with Northrop Grumman, reviewed model as a service (MaaS) as a means to enable secured collaboration across teams and geographies with DevSecOps; expanding on how this contributes to MBSE and Multi-disciplinary Analysis and Optimization.

Joseph Simmons, Ph.D., systems engineering manager of NGSP Launch Vehicles with Northrop Grumman, helped to connect the dots between DevSecOps and MBSE with an example of continuous integration between IBM’s DOORS and Dassault Systèmes’ Cameo Systems Modeler to ensure continuity across validation of system specifications and their supporting requirements.

Mark Williams, MBSE process architect with Boeing, discussed the importance of technical-business process-related metadata in integrating multiple virtual models, from hardware functioning and logical simulation to software: “digital metadata is key to data interoperability, exchange, integration, linking, traceability, reuse, translation, archiving, and synchronization.” The idea is to manage models over time per regulation requirements (rather than files)—hence the need to understand the diversity of models, their interdependencies, and their relationships with the data that they consume (e.g., 3D, material properties, boundary conditions, etc.) and produce (e.g., simulation results, requirement implications, change requests, etc.).

Don Tolle, practice director of Simulation-Driven Systems Development, and Craig Brown, executive consultant, with CIMdata, presented a market outlook update across segments such as simulation and analysis, software, and systems engineering. Furthermore, they reported about the need for collaborative model-based models for digital content and system architecture to leverage MBSE with supply chains outside of the enterprise. This is an ongoing thread developed within their aerospace and defence PLM action group.

Key points from this track included another perspective on how drafting and 2D-3D design transitioned into MBD, and subsequently moved toward the digital thread (automation across the digital enterprise). The idea is clearly that business benefits are multiplying as more and more business capabilities and functions consume and reuse the same data and models. So the digital thread is another synonym of “breaking the silos across the entire lifecycle” and “enabling informed and timely decision-making” (aka the PLM discipline, not just the PDM tool).

Referring to the digital thread is often positioned as a means of improving time to market or of shortening product development iterations. Interestingly, Melissa Harvey, product data management specialist with Boeing, illustrated the digital thread in the connect of supplier data exchange as a collection of networks that influences how the data is (meant to be) connecting. Based on her presentation, this spans across the user network (e.g., how people exchange data), the service network (e.g., how the data is transmitted), the access network (e.g., how the information is communicated, in terms of which format, method, etc., is used), and the proximity network (e.g., how nonfunctional aspects affect the ability to efficiency exchange data).

This track discussed several concurrent topics and themes, covering key points such as:

• How can you deal with disruption when dealing with complexity (product, process, logistics, supply chains, etc.)?
• How can you ensure that transformation roadmaps are understood and supported by leadership teams, and how do they view themselves driving the change?
• What are the roles and implications of cybersecurity in these transformation roadmaps?
• How can you leverage value from Agile delivery models, and how effective is the adoption of such models?

In this final track, Ben Nimmergut, VP of Design Centers with Boeing, highlighted the link between systems engineering and employee experience, covering four critical dimensions: “1) connection with colleagues and trust in leadership; 2) individual growth and reward opportunities; 3) meaningful work that aligns with employees’ values and contributes to a higher purpose; and 4) occurring in an environment that supports productivity and performance.” This clearly links to business change and cultural barriers but also the need to involve human resources in assessing and developing talents and workplace dynamics within and across teams.

Matt Heying, vice president of Product with Vertex Software, presented a series of case studies on 3D data rendering to enhance work instructions, quality inspection reports, factory asset visualization, and so on to increase process insights. It is an interesting perspective to leverage cloud-based rendering as an overlay visualization approach to consume 3D master data from authoring tools. Additionally, Garrett Thurston, senior director of Transformation, and David Haberman, Boeing global client executive, with Dassault Systèmes, elaborated on the need to assess organizational and data continuity readiness—mapping expected business value with enterprise capabilities and deployment constraints.

Beyond the evangelization and vendor presentations, many interesting points were discussed in this year’s summit. Key topics in the aerospace and defense sector often focus on standardization, security, model-based adoption, and data traceability—topics that are becoming common commodities across many other industries. As noted earlier, presentations from this and previous years’ events (from 2014 onward) can be accessed from the GPDIS website for more insights on these themes.

What are your thoughts?

References:

• GPDIS 2021 Conference Presentation, September 2021
• GPDIS 2021 Conference Recordings on YouTube, September 2021