As a "national heavy weapon" that supports the development and innovation of a manufacturing power, industrial software plays a key role in promoting industrial digital transformation and upgrading intelligent manufacturing, and plays an important role in the digital transformation of enterprises. They provide enterprises with various tools and solutions to improve and optimize production processes, enhance production efficiency, improve product quality, etc., thereby accelerating the innovative transformation of product development models and even the transformation of enterprise operating models.
I. The importance and necessity of digital transformation of enterprises
Before understanding the relationship between industrial software and digital transformation, it is necessary to first clarify what is informatization, what is digitalization, and the difference between them.
Informatization refers to the digitization of business information, thereby improving the work efficiency of various business departments or business links within the enterprise. The result of informatization construction is the establishment of a series of data recording systems (System of Record) within the enterprise. Since the end of the 20th century, the manufacturing industry has begun to fully promote informatization construction, and has established PLM, ERP, MES, CRM, SLM and other data recording systems in research, production, supply, sales, and service business areas. After years of informatization construction, most enterprises have achieved certain results, but at the same time, chimney-like information islands have also been formed. These information islands are bringing many problems and challenges to each link of the value chain inside and outside the enterprise, hindering the flow of product data between various business links, making it impossible for enterprises to respond agilely to changes in the market environment and the rapid iteration of user needs. Digitalization is based on informatization, using digital technology to realize the businessization of information/data, building end-to-end data links with product business as the core, and realizing business innovation. The goal of digitalization is to eliminate information islands for enterprises, break down organizational barriers, achieve interconnection and interoperability throughout the life cycle and the entire value chain, and drive innovation in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and the entire ecosystem. In the process of digital construction, enterprises often use new generation digital technologies represented by the Internet of Things, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, etc.
The process of enterprises transforming from informatization to digitalization is digital transformation. Digital transformation is a journey with only a starting point but no end point. It is a process of continuous iteration, spiral rise, and continuous self-subversion. The core of digital transformation is not digital technology, but the use of digital technology as a means and tool to reconstruct the business of enterprises, provide support for business agility and rapid innovation, and thus quickly respond to changes in market and user needs.
The core of digital transformation is digital thread and digital twin. Digital thread is to build a closed-loop link across the entire product life cycle between the physical world and the digital world to ensure that accurate product and process information is pushed to the right people at the right time. Through the digital thread, enterprises can easily trace back or trace back the data of each stage of the product. For example, design engineers can obtain the operating status and fault data of delivered products online in real time, so as to perform simulation analysis in the design environment, realize rapid product iteration and closed loop of quality problems; service engineers can quickly trace the data of the physical product in the development process through mobile terminals at the service site, including product structure, design model, production history, deviation records of out-of-tolerance, and spare parts information. Digital Twin is a digital expression of a physical product or system, which can dynamically reflect the operating status of the physical product or system in real time, and is used for further simulation, analysis and optimization. Physical products continue to operate, their status and operating environment are constantly changing, and the digital twin of the product also reflects the status of the actual product as data flows in.
II. The role of industrial software in the digital transformation of enterprises
As the jewel in the crown of industry, industrial software is the core of enterprise informatization and digitalization, and will play a decisive role in the process of enterprise digital transformation, which is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.
First, industrial software can automate and optimize the production process of enterprises, identify and solve potential production bottlenecks and inefficiencies through real-time data monitoring and analysis. This helps to improve production efficiency, reduce costs, and accelerate product time to market; industrial software can monitor the operating status of equipment and production lines in real time, detect abnormal conditions and issue alarms, and they can also use machine learning and predictive analysis technology to predict equipment failures and maintenance needs, help enterprises take preventive maintenance measures, and reduce downtime and maintenance costs; industrial software can integrate internal and external supply chain information of enterprises, help enterprises achieve visibility and collaboration of supply chains, and through real-time data sharing and collaboration tools, enterprises can better manage supplier relationships, predict demand, optimize inventory and logistics, thereby reducing costs and improving delivery efficiency.
Secondly, traditional industrial software is undergoing transformation and upgrading, and new digital technologies are being introduced to better support enterprise innovation and transformation. For example, artificial intelligence technology is introduced into CAD systems to achieve generative design capabilities. Multiple design solutions can be automatically calculated based on given constraints and load information, and verified through design-simulation integration technology for designers to select and confirm. Generative design can also be combined with additive manufacturing technology to process the bionic surface model generated by AI into a model that can be recognized by a 3D printer and sent directly to the printer for 3D printing. At the same time, as mentioned above, many industrial software are transforming to platformization, solving the problem of horizontal penetration in specific business areas, such as realizing demand-driven product design and associated traceability through the combination of demand management and product data. In addition, the transformation of platform-based industrial software to SaaS will further break down organizational barriers and information islands, accelerate the innovative transformation of product development models, and even the transformation of enterprise operating models.
Furthermore, with the full promotion of Industry 4.0 and intelligent manufacturing, digital innovation platform-based industrial software such as industrial Internet platforms are constantly emerging. The value of this type of platform is not to solve business problems in vertical professional fields, but to solve the problem of horizontal connection of the entire product life cycle and the entire value chain, so as to provide agile data and service support for front-end innovative applications, which is the digital main line mentioned above. The core of the digital main line is the businessization of data. The discrete product life cycle data stored in various business systems is aggregated through business models, and then the product data link is built by establishing associations between models. These models are then published in the form of services for front-end application development and call. Based on such a digital main line platform, a series of innovative application-oriented industrial software will also be derived, such as intelligent design navigation, digital twins, industrial apps, comprehensive data analysis, augmented reality (AR), and so on.