We are here at AWS re:Invent and one of the topics
that we're focused on is the industrial metaverse.
With me two experts to discuss it from Siemens, Stuart McCutcheon.
He is the VP of Global Sales and Customer Success.
He is focused on the industrial metaverse and right beside me BCG’s Dr.
Tilman Buchner.
He is a global leader at the Innovation Center for Operations
and Partner and Director at BCG.
So, Mr.
McCutcheon, I'm starting with you.
What is the industrial metaverse?
So the industrial metaverse- let's start off with Siemens.
So Siemens are a leader in virtual design and simulation.
We have lots of software that designs many products and simulates products.
We're also a leader in manufacturing and factory automation
and really bringing together the virtual
and the physical worlds together to create a digital twin.
And then experiencing that digital twin in an environment
is really what the industrial metaverse is about.
And being able to make decisions in a simple way.
Looking at a single pane of glass over a multitude of different
pieces of information
and making those decisions faster.
That's what it's really all about.
So, Doctor, we're picking up on what Mr.
McCutcheon just said. Why do we need it?
I first, fully agree with what Stuart said, and the reason
why is just think of designing, building, and operating a manufacturing plant
in today's world means you need to coordinate work across
thousands of people, across organizational boundaries.
And these people are working with software applications.
And these software applications generate data.
And this is a very complex process,
and this is where the industrial metaverse comes into play.
It offers you a leap frog in four areas, which is collaboration,
simulation, virtualization, and synchronization.
So you mentioned a little bit how Siemens sees this,
but how does Siemens play in this ecosystem?
So it's- We have a Siemens Accelerator is our platform.
It's an open ecosystem platform.
And basically we have to be able to bring together
lots of different types of data into this single environment.
Right?
We connect to this data from a relationships perspective,
really, in order to synchronize and extract this information from it.
So this sounds fascinating.
What I want to know, Dr. Buchner, is what are the hurdles?
Why do companies maybe resist adopting this technology?
Well, generally speaking, there are actually three things
which prevents companies today.
One is actually people and organizations.
So kind of the digital capabilities
you need to really benefit from the industrial metaverse.
Secondly, is we're talking about tech, yeah.
So the legacy data and technology backbone in companies might be a reason.
So you really need to invest into an ITOT system
architecture to be ready to integrate and benefit from the industrial metaverse.
And last but not least, it's strategy because the industrial metaverse offers
you a huge range of opportunities and you will need to figure out
what are the high priority use cases
which really generate impact on your particular individual site.
So picking up on that Mr.
McCutcheon, do you see these same hurdles, let's call them?
Yes, I see the same hurdles, very similar.
The- and again, defining those use cases is the key.
Right.
We can start today with industrial metaverse use cases today
and implement them.
And over time, as you build your network of information,
those use cases get more and more complex.
So if we talked about the hurdles, I also have to ask you both what is possible.
So Dr. Buchner,
what's possible? Let me give you a concrete example.
For example, today at the start of production, companies
lack the ability to use the full power of artificial intelligence. Why?
Because at start of production, you don't have training datasets.
Now, the industrial metaverse, and especially the idea of synthetic data
generation and photorealistic rendering comes into play because
now we can in simulation, generate training datasets,
thanks to the enhancements in photorealistic rendering
so that we can train the inferior model in simulation and deploy
reality. Concrete speaking
this means now you can, for example, identify a quality defect
at part number one, and this reduces
actually, the scrap rate and gives us the ability to save costs.
That's only possible since 3 to 5 years because of the industrial metaverse.
So it has this potential to help a business run much more efficiently.
Yes. And today, you know, products are getting a lot more complex, right?
You got mechanical electrical software.
Everything's got software in it now.
There is a lot more variation in these products
and you want to be able to produce them really quickly.
All right.
And we're onboarding a lot of factories to different
local locations for environmental reasons.
And so we build plants quicker.
So we have examples where we can now help
customers build a plant design virtually
optimize it and launch it, comission it
within 50% of the time they used to be able to.
Well, that's a pretty good headline. And that's the sort of value
the industrial metaverse can bring to our customers. Stuart McCutcheon and Dr.
Tilman Buchner, thank you both for your time. Thank you.