Complex technologies are developed by processes that must cope with high levels of complexity, and sustainability adds a new dimension to the design challenge.
This video was sponsored by TECHNIA.
The design of the technologies that we use every day, from cell phones to jet airliners, has changed significantly over the last decade, a change that is accelerating. The tools that help engineering professionals advance the state-of-the-art are changing too, and those tools are arriving just in time to address a new set of unforeseen challenges facing designers in the 2020s, notably climate change. How do these new tools intersect with the new technologies designed by those tools? Joining Jim Anderton to discuss the issues is Rolf Wiedmann, Managing Director at TECHNIA.
Learn more about about how simulation-driven design can help make sustainable products.
The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Jim Anderton: Hello, everyone. And welcome to Designing the Future. You know the design of the technologies that we use every day from cell phones to jet airliners. Well, they’ve changed significantly over the last decade. A change that is accelerating. Now, the tools that help engineering professionals advance the state of the art, they’re changing too. And those tools are arriving just in time to address a new set of unforeseen challenges facing designers in the 2020s, notably climate change. So how do these new tools interact with new technologies designed by those tools. Joining me to discuss this important issue is Rolf Wiedmann, Managing Director of TECHNIA. Rolf, welcome to the show.
Rolf Wiedmann: Hi Jim, nice talking to you.
Jim Anderton: Rolf, let’s dive right into this, because there’s so much to talk about and these issues are so important. Let’s talk about sustainability. It’s an important subject through all the engineering disciplines these days. I mean, what do we mean by sustainability from an engineering perspective?
Rolf Wiedmann: Sustainability has matured. So as of today, as we are meeting many engineers in our daily work from OEMs to startups to larger tier ones, tier two suppliers, we’ve seen that sustainability is no longer perceived as a cost factor. It’s rather perceived as a success factor, actually. And so the attitude of engineering, the relevance has changed significantly over time. We are seeing that it’s no longer an issue of cost. It’s more an issue of setting up the right products for the future and the boundary conditions we see from governments and organizations. Also in the behavior of our clients from the end user is that sustainable products are accepted and at the end of the day are the most cost effective things that customers can produce. So we see there’s a significant change to adopting sustainability concepts in their daily work.
Jim Anderton: For many years, sustainability meant coping with waste, recycling waste disposable. That’s how we thought of sustainability. If we dig a large hole and we throw the rubbish in and cover it over, then then we are sustainable. In Germany, the automotive industry led the way with a cradle to grave approach to this problem. BMW famously, I understand, will dismantle the cars at the end of their life and recycle the components. Now this must put pressure on the design phase. I can imagine that designing a new automobile, for example, with 200 different kinds of polymer parts would be a nightmare to recycle at the end of its use. Do you see the pressures from the sustainability aspect starting off early in the design phase?
Rolf Wiedmann: Even more true than before. Just to give you an example, if you look at state of the art engines in electric vehicles, you see that, for example, the topic of rare earth is extremely important. So especially in times where we all know some political crisis can happen each day, the question is how am I independent of such situations. We’ve seen him with the chip crisis also. So really our customers and especially OEMs are striving to be in control of their product development. And so they also focus it very much that they can produce without being too reliable on third parties or supply chains.
Jim Anderton: That’s an interesting point. I know that, of course, there’s a CO2 footprint to a large supply chain as well. And in manufacturing, we moved from many years a just-in-time model of attempting to get component parts and assemblies delivered from many, many suppliers, all coinciding at the assembly point with exact perfect timing. And I think the COVID crisis has shown that’s a very fragile system. That’s easy to disrupt. Is there a sustainability issue there? Can you make an argument for purchasing more locally to reduce that carbon footprint?
Rolf Wiedmann: As I mentioned before, it’s about being in control of their supply chains. And sometimes also the logistics of producing are changing currently. So new concepts are being applied and certainly also this gives some requirements to the engineering community. Maybe they have to design more alternative products, more variants to be more flexible. Even starting the process before that, if it comes to the supply chain management later on, they have simply more options to work on that one. So it’s actually also has some impact on our engineering teams and the engineering community.
Jim Anderton: Rolf, when I was in the industry, design was really mostly about performance and cost. And that was it. It was essentially a matter of you’re tasked to design a component part or assembly that meets certain performance specifications and do so at the lowest cost. And things like sustainability were just not factored into that decision. How is that changing the mindset, do you think, of the design engineers now? Do they have to look at something and think, “Well, I would like to use nylon six for this part, or I’d like to use an aluminum alloy, but now I can’t because there are implications at the end life.”
Rolf Wiedmann: That’s true. But as we know, our engineers are extremely creative and they are defining, let’s say, the footprint of the product in a very early stage. So they determine it and they create solutions for that one. And it’s another challenge. Yes, it might be easier to stick to known concepts. But I think this is also what our engineers like to be challenged and to develop alternative concepts, take into account what, at the end of the day, our clients and our customer’s clients want to buy. And again, sustainable products are in the mind of our customers, our end users. And so the success of a product is certainly defined by its sustainability and how it can be presented in the market, in that sense.
Jim Anderton: We’ve talked about sustainability in reducing the impact of designs that we make now. But of course, reducing CO2 itself has become a large industry with new technologies emerging to things like capture carbon, sequester it. Europe leaves the way in many of these technologies down here. A growth industry, is that a place where you think where we’re going to see some innovative engineering growing in the future?
Rolf Wiedmann: So we have a constant dynamic currently. But it’s very interesting to see, I think, since I’m in industry, I’ve never seen a phase where so many new initiatives at existing traditional customers have emerged, driven by that momentum that we see here. And also so many new startups getting into business, taking care of these new topics. So there’s a big dynamic and great innovation. Especially, look at topics like battery systems that you manage. And here also, if we relate back to engineering tasks, we see that topics like systems engineering become much more in the mindset of our engineers. Because it’s not only creating shapes of products, it’s also predicting their behavior and optimizing their behavior. Also in with regard to their efficiency, like heating systems and so on, these new type of…
Rolf Wiedmann: If you take the example of electro-mobility, I mean, we are not only in the part of transportation, mobility, different industries, but especially in transportation. Mobility, it becomes topic about the heating systems, the climate control and so on. And that has also been the reason that we as TECHNIA, I just recently acquired a company called Claytex that especially engages in simulation and especially in the simulation of battery systems and so on. Where we see that our customers are facing us with the topic on a daily basis.
Jim Anderton: Well, I hope that we’ll chat in a moment about simulation in greater depth. But one thing I want to touch on and you brought up the systems engineering is at cloud connectivity. Now we’re coming out of a COVID-19 global pandemic first time in a century that this kind of thing has happened. But most engineering teams work collaboratively and they work with meetings and they’ve historically worked face to face. And that’s been important. I mean, historically global firms, like yourself, often would fly people from continent to continent to make sure that those meetings could happen to move projects forward. We have software that allows us to meet virtually, much in the way we’re doing it now. But engineering is also about sharing technical ideas, including renderings, models, algorithms, entirely different world at this point. Are we going to see a future from this point forward, where we decentralize everything in engineering, everyone designs and works from home, and we use technologies like we’re using right now to replace the face to face meeting.
Rolf Wiedmann: You’re completely right with that topic. But take in a bigger context, maybe. This is more or less a social change that is taking place that not only affects the engineering community, but virtually all workforces that we are having. But with the difference that for the engineering community, they sometimes have to do the hard stuff, to do the heavy lifting in terms of, as you mentioned, designs and so on. What we believe in, actually also in our company and many of our clients, is offices will merge into kind of a social hub. So there will be a new environment in the companies. A place to meet for business reason, but also to socialize. And it won’t be thus frequented as before. But it will be vital that the engineering teams can meet then be creative, exchange ideas together in a spot, in that hub.
Will they work the full week then in that hub? I don’t think so. And good news is, that as of today, tools have been available in the market. I mean, we are heavily pushing forward the 3D experience platform from Dassault Systèmes here to enable not only the collaboration, but really have the product described in a complete virtual way, combined with all the metadata. So it’s interesting. I had called some customers that we are adopting the platform. Hey, I can open up the design in the subway on the way to the customer or on my way home. And it has been extremely pushed these kind of solutions, especially by the change. Sometimes it needs such a dramatic change to create significant progress. And the adoption of these kind of tools has been extremely pushed forward what we are seeing here. And you also mentioned the topic and relation to cloud, and this all needs to be cloud-enabled or else it’s not feasible.
Rolf Wiedmann: And we are acting mainly also in Germany with a big chunk of our business. Traditionally Germany is quite conservative due to security and all this kind of stuff. But this has also changed in the minds of our customers. Because today is perceived to be more secure to be on the cloud, not to be exposed to cyber tech, in a sense. Easily to restore systems after a tech. And they believe that the big providers that are around like as Assure, AWS, and others. At the end of the day, they are more secure than the midsize, medium business that we have here locally. So it also has been a major shift in the adoption of cloud for technology reasons to provide that data in a distributor environment. But also it’s changed dramatically in terms of security. Has it been a negative point before? It is not perceived as a benefit for security topics to work on the cloud.
Jim Anderton: Well, I’m glad you brought up the issue of security because I’m hearing so much about it in our industry. It’s historically, of course, there have been trade secrets. There have been reasons to keep designs away from other people’s eyes. But there have also been issues with a customer. Specifically in areas such as aerospace and defense, where there may actually be legal requirements for keeping security of a specific design. I remember once visiting a division of a large aerospace manufacturer that we won’t mention that is based in Toulouse, France. And in that division, they actually were using specially made USB sticks and physically carrying designs from machine to machine to keep them away from the cloud out of security concerns. Yet by the same token, I see many firms today with current technology freely using internet cloud-based systems to move IT regulated designs. Designs that are quite secret in many cases down there. Is the confidence there? Do you feel now to stop worrying about hacking or attack from the cloud?
Rolf Wiedmann: We need to really distinguish between really mission critical things and the day-to-day work that our customers are doing. For sure there are standards, like tsocks and others, that regulate how and what data and what needs to be the secured infrastructure to work with. So that is a given that also will take some time. It’s not the case that this is completely free now at all can collaborate. But what we see is currently we have examples from large tier one suppliers that are setting up hosted environments, which are then secured by itself within the company. And then connect to gather around their teams in the world, to staff a big OEM project that are currently coming up. So there are many ways hosted-cloud, public-cloud. So certainly you have to find the right way to secure the needed security. But on the other hand, let’s say the frontier is really pushed forward currently. Also in the relationship between the OEM and the supplier, because simply the benefits are there.
Jim Anderton: Rolf, so much to talk about in connectivity. But I’d like to touch base about simulation. We’re hearing so much about it now in its new advanced forms. Of course, simulation has always been around. Engineering’s about simulation. We simulate in our mind. Perhaps historically, we would make small test articles or prototypes. We would test them in this respect. But we would iterate our way to success, start with an idea and then alter the design. Alter, alter, alter until we get something satisfactory. Now we’re looking at a world where we could almost take a crazy idea, even a loose concept, and then we can, using simulation software, actually simply test it rather than develop it in our mind first. It feels like we’re almost skipping a step where we can simply try 10,000 different ways to do something rather than simply attempt to narrow the focus from the beginning down there. Are we going to change the way that we approach this? Is this strictly about simulation to reduce cost? Or simulation going to get us to an ideal design faster? Both?
Rolf Wiedmann: It’s all about the concept of try and fail fast. And this is extremely supported by new ways of simulating. Not only design in a classical sense that you have this stiffness or the load on a part, it’s actually much more. We see it. For example, the current industry, you see, there are so many different types of cars brought to the market that customers simply don’t have the time to really do the home location with all of these cars. So they need ways of doing virtual testing that is per se, given for them. And virtual testing has also increased not only just to look in the rear mirror. Can you see the background in the right way? No, it’s much more. It’s the definition of complex systems.
And what I mentioned in the term of system engineering, system behavior, you’re virtually now the chance to simulate the performance of a complex system, including software. We all know how important software is now in the value chain of many companies. So a lot of the value of the product, also the maintainability is determined by the software they’re using. And there are some US firms that seem to have, especially in the car industry, some competitive edge. But as I heard, some of the German car makers are coming up.
Jim Anderton: Rolf, I think obliquely, you’re perhaps mentioning Volkswagen with their big electric vehicle push and that their growth has been remarkable and, in many quarters, unexpected. But you brought up complexity, I think. And I think that’s a key issue here for firms like Volkswagen as a case in point. When simulation began to really take off, we’ve noticed that designs became more complex. And we began to wonder our system’s more complex because simulation allows us to make things that are more complex. Or is it the other way around? In a sense, are the algorithms basically pushing designers to make things that are more complex because they now can optimize them at levels they couldn’t before. I think of additive manufacturing, for example, or you can make a simple bracket, which looks almost like an organic shape, very, very complex. Too complex to design in conventional ways. So do you think it comes from this advanced software or it’s a natural part of using this software?
Rolf Wiedmann: So I think just an old say form follows function. From the boho style before. So I don’t think actually that this drives complexity because there will be a negative aspect it’s much more. That also not only, as I said, the varieties are getting more, it’s also that we all know the lead times. The cycles are getting much closer. So per se, the complexity is increasing. So I don’t think that engineers just use complexity yet because they can manage it. I think still this perfect design, this perfect function is looked at. And it’s a major principle of successful engineering. So I believe in our community that they are really having these values in mind. But as we have shorter cycles and more variants, simulation helps keep track of it.
And as we are adding more components… I have an old timer from 1975. There’s not too much software, and I can tell you. But in the new cars there is. So it’s a given that also offering more functionality to products, we simply have more components. So we have to cope with software and all these kind of things. So I think these things are getting together. This is natural. Complexity is evolving. And so our systems need to keep track to help us manage it in a controlled and secure way.
Jim Anderton: It’s funny you mention that, Rolf. When I was a teenager, the Bosch Jetronic injection on a Super Beetle seemed so complex that I removed it and installed carburetors.
Rolf Wiedmann: Okay.
Jim Anderton: I drive a Honda right now and the technical manual for the Honda is 2,763 pages in length. So it has to be delivered as software. Because it’s simply impractical to print something. So the complexity is wild. But I come from the automotive industry. And I come from the automotive industry. And change is a natural part of all manufacturing. But configuration control is always an essential part. And you could see this really in older, more experienced engineers who are always very wary about constant modifications and changes to parts. And often they wanted to sort of suppress this as much as possible. Or tell a young up and coming designer and say, “Yes. You can change it five different ways to make it better. But we must hold and wait for next year or perhaps two years, hence, when we do an overall system redesign and we implement changes then.”
Jim Anderton: And one reason was, of course, the cost of tracking these changes, revising blueprints, for example, renderings. We used to say, “They go through the alphabet. So many changes, A B, C, D.” And so always there was a desire to crush this. Even if in their heart, the engineer knew I can make this better. If they’ll just let me. Are we at a point now where we can just release or free the engineer to go ahead and make those changes monthly, weekly, daily?
Rolf Wiedmann: You’re right. There’s a strong antagonism between what is possible and what is manufacturable on the other side. But this is a discussion we have having for many, many years now. Yes. True. But completely speaking, the new systems allow us to better keep track. I mentioned we are different industries as TECHNIA. One of our biggest industries is life sciences. And if you have an implant, for example, you need to keep track of it maybe longer as the projected lifetime of the patient is. And if you start to make a lot of changes in the product, and you’re not sure what is then delivered to the client at the end of the day, you are in big [inaudible 00:22:35] troubles. So especially in that industry, it is a strong momentum to use systems like engineering the platforms, the 3D piece platforms to really document where you are and have a concrete representation of the product and all its related data materials and so on.
So this is extremely important. And I think now that we mature on that one, customers trust to allow even more flexibility to come quicker, to better design and not restrict the young engineer with the prior idea to the next year’s release, where I can use that stuff. By the way, it’s the same thing with cars. That this automated update is something that is very much perceived by customers. Like with your phone, where you like to get a new update and new features in the product, not only all three years when you buy a new phone or on the fly. So this is also something that keeps you awake as a customer. So in order to track all this, it’s extremely important of systems in place. And we see heavy investments from the big OEMs that they’re using. Especially these type of platform systems to keep track. And on the other end allow flexibility.
Jim Anderton: Rolf, I’d like to ask you to project into the future. Artificial intelligence, AI, we have to mention it. It’s on everyone’s mind everywhere. In all aspects of software, not just an engineering software at this point. And it is an aid which helps engineering professionals do their jobs better. Will it replace engineering as we know it now? Is the age of the designer going to disappear? Will generative design and AI simply take the tools out of the hand of the craftsman and do the job itself?
Rolf Wiedmann: No, no, definitely not. The role of the engineer in the forefront of developing products, thinking of new products and initiating them. I think there’s a strong position in our industry for the role. Yes. Will there be additional tools that make your life easier? I mean, we’ve seen it in artificial intelligence in code making. So I mean, why is it important that I’m coding programs? Maybe, I just talk and say what function I want and it’s directly coded in a language of choice. So it’s a help. Like we have been introducing CAP Systems many years ago, still engineers are there. And so I strongly believe in that community. It’s growing, for sure. Everybody has to adopt his skills. One of our values at TECHNIA is keep learning. So I think we all need to keep learning and engage with new topics. And at the end of the day, be professional in what we are doing.
Jim Anderton: It’s an amazing future. Rolf Wiedmann, Managing Director at TECHNIA. Thanks for joining me on the show.
Rolf Wiedmann: Thank you for having me.
Jim Anderton: And thank you for joining us. See you next time on Designing the Future.
Learn more about about how simulation-driven design can help make sustainable products.
