‘PLM adoption is increasing at a very fast rate in India’

Dassault Syst?mes is a leading provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions. The company?s vision is to provide solutions that allow creators, collaborators and consumers to imagine, share and experience in 3D. ?Our solutions facilitate the design, simulation and production of extremely complex systems, such as cars or aircraft, and the manufacturing facilities used to produce them,? says Philippe Forestier, executive vice-president of global affairs and communities, Dassault Syst?mes. In an interview with FE?s Vikram Chaudhary, he shares the need for PLM adoption not only for big businesses, but also for companies that are extremely small, so that the whole innovation cycle is complete. Excerpts:

Can you share Dassault Syst?mes? India connection?

India is a key market in Dassault Syst?mes? scheme of things; it is not simply about having a local sales operation but also a very significant R&D presence. We have 28% of our global R&D taking place in India. After France, India is the second biggest place for us in terms of R&D presence.

From a sales perspective, India has become a very large engineering services player now. So a lot of engineering services players are our customers, such as automobile OEM companies, aerospace development companies, DRDO labs etc. The adoption of PLM is increasing at a very fast rate in India.

Tell us about the need for PLM and the solutions you develop?

As organisations became more global and products more diverse, PLM has emerged as an approach that had the potential to radically change the way companies develop products from ideas. Also, businesses are shifting towards sustainable development and Indian enterprises are following the same trend. Sustainable development helps organisations work effectively, yet be environment friendly. With the help of PLM solutions, companies can reduce or even eliminate the use of hazardous materials in their products, thereby avoiding problems such as launch delays, recalls, fines, poor customer satisfaction and a damaged public image.

We offer an extensive allay of solutions to cater to specific requirements of various businesses. We currently have six solutions, which are CATIA (for virtual design), SIMULIA (for realistic simulation), DELMIA (for digital production and manufacturing), ENOVIA (for collaborative innovation), 3DVIA (for lifelike experience) and SolidWorks (for 3D mechanical design).

You said that adoption of PLM solutions is increasing in India. Is it also increasing in the government sector?

Public sector is rather one of the biggest users of our solutions. We are actively involved with various state governments in contributing to the creation of a conducive environment for PLM education in the country. We are also looking forward to play a significant role in the modernisation of the Indian defence sector.

Apart from large organisations, how can your products be useful for the SMB sector?

Fifty percent of our user base is the SMB sector because we have dedicated products for SMBs. For instance, our product called SolidWorks is for the companies that are extremely small. Because at the end of the day, in any design or innovation activity, the whole value chain participates?not just the OEMs but also their suppliers (tier-1, tier-2, tier-3 suppliers). There have to be products that need to support all of them; otherwise the whole innovation cycle is not complete.

But has the market realised the potential of PLM solutions?

The market is appreciating PLM more and more. Companies today have to innovate not only to grow, but also to survive. A few years ago, the focus of a CEO was execution, today it is innovation. And that is driving the need for our solutions.

Going ahead, what are the trends you foresee in the PLM segment?

One trend is going to be sustainability. What that means is companies are rethinking the product to deliver a dramatically low level of carbon impact. New Delhi, for example, is adding a thousand cars a day and people are not going to stop buying cars, so the only way to address that issue is that the companies will have to lower emission levels. Companies are working towards those through hybrid technologies, using new materials etc. And all those are supported by what we are doing.

The second trend is the challenge of product complexity?you have to deliver a level of variation to the customer, and at the same time be profitable. In order to do that, you will have to ensure that non-value added elements are removed. We are working on that area, too. The third trend we see is the technology trend. In the coming years, more and more software is going to be delivered as a service. The concepts of cloud computing, the concept of SaaS model ; we are aligned to those again.