The latest component of Dassault’s sustainability initiative is the launch of a new life cycle analysis solution, called "Sustainable Innovation Intelligence."
In recent years, the PLM developer Dassault Systèmes has taken a great deal of initiative around sustainability. At a general level, this is related to joining the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative, to “advance the mission to harmonize product, nature and life.”
“Building a sustainable economy together requires a change in the sustainable innovation process, from the extraction of raw materials to use, reuse and recycling,” says Dassault’s Florence Verzelen, EVP for Industry, Marketing and Sustainability, providing some background to the initiative.
When it comes to practical, environmentally-related digital tools, new solutions have been added to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The latest component of Dassault’s sustainability initiative is the launch of a new life cycle analysis solution (LCA), called “Sustainable Innovation Intelligence.” This is an important improvement because the purpose of an LCA—in addition to getting a general idea of the environmental impact of things like materials, transportation chains, consumption of natural resources, emissions, and more—is also to get a perception of the resource flows and processes that exist. With this information in hand, it is easier to implement better substantiated measures regarding what can be done to reduce environmental impact.
This new LCA solution is fully embedded in Dassault’s 3DEXPERIENCE PLM platform. They claim that it will be possible for companies to minimize the environmental impact of the products, materials and processes they create, and help drive the circular economy. Handled correctly—and with the necessary integrated cross-domain tools in the software module—this is absolutely possible.
Through the integration into the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, Dassault has a crucial prerequisite to ensure that the Sustainable Innovation Intelligence capabilities cover the entire value chain, which is a fundamental aspect of LCA. Verzelen says that it, “integrates the cloud-based solution into the unique Ecoinvent database,” which covers LCA effects in more than 18,000 industrial and agricultural processes, in terms of virtual design, product development, manufacturing technology, operations and logistics.
In any case, Dassault’s introduction of this LCA solution is a promising step.
In the press introduction of the LCA solution, Verzelen further states that, “whether it is in manufacturing, urban infrastructure, life sciences or computer science experiences that combine LCA capacity with virtual twin technology, we offer companies new ways to innovate.” This is achieved by understanding how their decisions affect natural resources, ecosystems and health.
“Through our 3DEXPERIENCE platform, we strive to help companies contribute to the UN ‘Decade of Action’ and grow while they do so,” she says.
Bringing Digital Twins Into the Game
Ideas built around digital twins are an exciting aspect of what Dassault is presenting. The company was not the first to think about this concept, but over the years it has gradually embraced the approach.
This latest initiative to combine LCA data with digital twin technology creates the right conditions for the Sustainable Innovation Intelligence solution to give LCA specialists, industrial designers, product engineers and manufacturing engineers the opportunity to create circular life cycles. This can ideally be done by setting sustainability requirements at early stages in product realization and, together with all stakeholders, driving them through the design, product development and manufacturing phases. This also allows integration of aspects such as sustainability-affecting perspectives on material supply, design, manufacturing, operation, logistics, sales, marketing and end-of-life management.
Dassault also claims that the new LCA solution can provide real-time insights that, “enable teams to virtually identify problems or improvements before acting on them, and ensure traceability and reliability.”
A Well-Timed LCA Solution
Dassault’s new solution comes at a time when many companies are working to reduce emissions in line with new findings in climate science, and aiming to develop more circular business models by 2030 by redesigning their product lines and manufacturing systems. At their ideal level, these aspirational and valuable goals can certainly bring development and methodology forward. However, Dassault claims that a number of weaknesses can be observed in the current situation. These weaknesses need to be addressed in order to accelerate the development towards sustainability.
“Most business solutions on the market today are still focused on measuring the footprint of yesterday’s economy, retroactively,” says Verzelen.
“In order to drive sustainable innovation towards greater breakthroughs, companies must integrate eco-design principles into the upstream thinking around their future products and processes before there is any environmental impact in the real world. Virtual universes provide this opportunity,” she says.
Ecoinvent’s First Partnership with a Software Company
Here, Dassault argues that the Sustainable Innovation Intelligence solution has a special strength in that it relies on the life-cycle inventory database of the non-profit Ecoinvent Association. Ecoinvent’s data measures and provides information on the natural resources from the environment, the pollutants released into water and soil, the emissions into the air, the products demanded from other processes, as well as the products, by-products and waste produced in different sectors at global and regional levels.
“Our partnership with Dassault Systèmes is the first with a software company where our database is used at the beginning of the product and manufacturing processes for sustainability assessments,” says Emilia Moreno Ruiz, interim director of the Ecoinvent Association. “LCA provides the measurement values needed to evaluate the environmental impact over the product’s life cycle. Integrating it with virtual twin technology opens up new opportunities to address these effects early.”
