PDSFORUM 2024 – A Journey through the Digital Thread

Vibrant, enthusiastic, collaborative, and innovative at its best—these words capture the atmosphere of the 2024 Nordic edition of PDSFORUM–Master Your Digital Thread. Sold out, with over 200 customers, partners, and guest speakers, PDSFORUM cannot be described as anything other than pure success.

When Elin Wegner, Customer Success Manager at PDSVISION, and Aleksander Patz, Managing Director PDSVISION Nordics, hit their knuckles on stage at Gothia Towers in Gothenburg on the morning of April 10, it marked the start of two intense knowledge-boosting days with talks, networking, and workshops. This year’s theme was “Master Your Digital Thread”. Mats Oretorp, CEO of PDSVISION, summed up the idea of and expectations for the days to come. “We are here to deliver software solutions for you, and the more we interact and facilitate actions, bringing you together, the better for us all.”

Vestas’ drivers for digital transformation

First out on stage, on screen from Copenhagen, was Simon Saandvig Storbjerg, head of Business Area Digital Engineering and Product Lifecycle at the Danish manufacturer of wind power solutions, Vestas. He shared his insights on the drivers for digital transformations in Vestas’ business.

“Our market outlook shows a significant growth potential for wind energy. Another driver is the highly competitive wind market. It pushes for faster time-to-market and lower cost of energy. The last years we have seen a negative development of lost production, that is also a key driver.”

The industry growth potential and market dynamics demand effective solutions and operational excellence, Simon Saandvig Storbjerg stated.

“We are now undergoing a transformation of our product development, implying a modular approach, developing our product architecture and plan for new releases.”

He exemplified the digital development of blade design and manufacturing.

“Here we have implemented a full digital thread, from a model-based design all the way to manufacturing. We reduced the cost of poor quality by over 90 percent, and the time-to-market by 45-50 percent.”

 Closing the loop of the digital thread

PTC provided the first live appearance on stage with Brian Thompson, Divisional Vice President and General Manager of the CAD Segment, and Mark Lobo, Senior VP and General Manager of the PLM Segment. With a dynamic set-up, they shared their vision and strategy for product design and development.

“Macro forces are driving investments: No one comes to talk with PTC without discussing sustainability issues,” Brian Thompson said and continued:

It is a very exciting time to be a part of PTC, being able to close the loop of the digital thread for you. The industry is wakening up for the need for software, and the opportunities to create value are growing.”

Mark Lobo picked up on the theme and demonstrated how to use Windchill for model-based design, continuing showing how the digital thread can support sustainability issues, like capturing the carbon footprint.

“With the integrations we have with other systems, as Ansys Granta, you can get material information and the carbon footprint for each product and the underlying components in Windchill.”

Disruptive technologies and product lifecycle  journeys

This year’s edition of PDSFORUM had a new customer experience with a separate Exhibition room, where the participants could take part of the Digital Thread. Walking through the room you could see Vestas journey through the digital thread in the PTC booths. With representatives from Ansys, showcasing engineering simulation and material intelligence and Altium, displaying Electronic Design Software. It is a perfect way to enjoy coffee breaks and networking while discovering new technologies and product lifecycle journeys.

After the first coffee break, Brian Thompson continued showing the development of Creo in an in-depth CAD block. He highlighted disruptive technologies such as AI and generative and simulation-driven design.

Parallel with the CAD block, a panel discussion about product lifecycle journeys took place on the main stage. Aleksander Patz discussed challenges, opportunities, and outcomes with Daniel Malmquist, PLM Service Manager at NKT, Daniel Wiklund, Process/Architecture Owner PLM at Electrolux Professional, and Dominic Hoben, Mechanical Group Leader at Corpower Ocean.

The panel discussion focused on how, despite the companies’ different challenges, sizes, and differences in what they do, they still have a lot in common on their digital transformation journey.

The last session before lunch was assigned to Mikael Gustafsson, PLM Business System Owner at Xylem. He delved into the rationale behind merging two Windchill instances’ data and processes into a unified system in the PTC Cloud. With his perspective on their unique challenge, it was a customer story like no other.

For Mikael being a part of PDSFORUM created a platform to be able to network, share experiences, and discover new solutions.

Sometimes in your day-to-day struggle you may feel somewhat alone, but here you meet people with similar issues, problems and challenges. The atmosphere is very inclusive, you can ask anyone anything. It is great!

Mikael Gustafsson, PLM Business System Owner, Xylem, about the atmosphere and energy on PDSFORUM.

Evolabel’s rapid PLM journey

Evolabel manufactures print equipment and applications. Its approach, “simplicity with technology,” has enabled the company to grow into a key player in its market. Michael Holmberg, Evolabel’s Configuration and Release Manager, shared his experiences of the company’s rapid PLM journey.

“Windchill has made our agile and fast development process possible, with PDSVISION as a partner from the start of our digital journey,” Michael Holmberg explained.

Evolabel has decided on a bold objective: to become the largest supplier in its market within five years.

“We realized we had to reshape our organization and processes, and we knew PLM connected both and provides the models we needed”, Michael Holmberg said and concluded:

We implemented the new PLM system in nine months, thanks to our partnership with digital transformation consultants QCM and PDSVISION. We can now reach our business goal of being the largest provider in our market.”

The transition from coordinated to connected

Jos Voskuil, known as a thought leader within PLM through his blog Virtualdutchman, made an overview of the why, what and how of digital transformation within PLM. His theme was the transition from coordinated to connected. Jos Voskuil relates the established principle of “the right information, for the right person, at the right time, in the right context” to what he called the coordinated digital thread.

The connected company provides updated information for anyone connected in any relevant context. It breaks silos, and this requires datasets in other formats than documents and files, created by accountable persons.”

For the future, he foresees what he called federated PLM systems, where the PLM infrastructure is a mix of a traditional PLM system and other datasets and platforms such as ERP, CRM, and IIoT.

Towards one true source of information

Have you ever wondered who freezes the food you pick from the grocery store freezers?

JBT is a global provider of freezing solutions, freezing more than half of the world’s frozen food. JBT encompasses an entire value chain, from the farmers to the consumers. Teddy Svensson, Engineering Manager in the EMEA region, guided through the company’s digital journey, going from an old, manually managed system to a PLM system with Windchill at its core.

We had an obsolete dual system, with manual transfer of data and a limited change management process. Now, we have CAD data, item data, and BOM management in one system, with configurable product structures integrated with ERP. In the future, we see data flowing from sales through engineering, operations, and customer care. Our vision is to have one JBT across the globe, with one true source of information,” Teddy Svensson stated.

The Interplay between PLM and CPQ

After JBT, CPC—Center for Product Customization—took the stage, demonstrating how businesses can increase their competitiveness through Modular Architectures and complexity reduction.

It’s much easier when you have an architecture where you have well-defined modules and variants compared to doing it on the poorly structured data that’s created in silos and not organized.” – Kristian Frøstrup Madsen.

Sustainability–why materials matter

Anne Chabrillat, Product Sales Specialist, and Manuelle Clavel, Principal Application Engineer at Ansys, demonstrated how to benefit from material intelligence and why materials matter for sustainability. Based on Ansys’ application for material intelligence, Granta MI, they highlighted the importance of materials data and its management for designing better performing, more sustainable and more competitive products. Anne Chabrillat showed how materials can solve a series of sustainability challenges:

• Sustainable packaging.
• Light weighting.
• Durable design.
• Material circularity.
• Removing harmful substances.
• Using environmentally friendly materials.

An important feature is the integration with PTC applications as Creo and Windchill.

You can access sustainability data from Granta MI for materials selection directly in Creo and Windchill.”

Transforming fishing nets to design furniture

The closing speaker of day one was Robin Teigland, Professor of Strategy and Management of Digitalization at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. With passion and engagement, she inspired the audience with a seemingly relentless belief in empowerment and in engaging in the local society and economy–and that way impact and make a difference with a bottom-up approach. She exemplified this with her initiative Peniche Ocean Watch, a blue circular economy initiative to upcycle reclaimed fishing nets in Portugal.

“We turn fishing nets into a new, secondary material that we can use in large-scale products with a long lifecycle.”

With Peniche Ocean Watch as a base, Robin Teigland co-founded Ekbacken Studios, which creates design furniture by upcycling waste material.

By using our fishing net material, we reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 93 percent.”

Robin Teigland’s talk clearly showed that the choice of materials plays a huge role. With that in mind, the audience could round off the day by mingling and networking in the exhibition center. No doubt, Robin Teigland’s new perspectives left an optimistic mark on the evening’s discussions during the relaxed street food dinner.

Mastering The Digital Thread at PDSFORUM

Just like the theme of the event, “Master Your Digital Thread,” attendees got to have a full circle moment, hearing about the digital thread journey from customers, seeing it hands-on in the exhibition room, and attending the workshops that followed the day after.

The second day at PDSFORUM is as important as the day filled with experts. With full workshops filled with customers who want to listen more to get inspiration and clear strategies and how-to knowledge that leads attendees to be one step closer to achieving their digital transformation goals.

Workshops that dived into sustainability, building modularity, pure CAD, and how to extend the digital thread are leading companies to take the next step.

What’s Next?

With participants from both customers and partners sharing their thoughts:

The atmosphere is very open-minded; it is easy to talk to people here. You get important insights and get references on how other companies work: are we left behind or are we at the forefront? This is my second year here, and it will be repeated.”

Fredrik Bjärevall, Manager Mechanical R&D, Plockmatic, notes that he will return to future editions of PDSFORUM.

It is inspiring to take part in other companies’ experiences and expert’s insights. How you can benefit from a digital thread by cutting administration and eliminate bottlenecks is very interesting.”

Sara Smedendahl, Design Engineer, MLE, Mitsubishi Logisnext Europe, on her main take-away from PDSFORUM.

You get access to experts, from PDSVISION, from us at PTC and other partners. But most important, you get to talk to other people that are going through the same thing as you, trying to change and improve their processes. You got to be here, to learn from others.”

Brian Thompson, General Manager CAD, PTC, on why you should attend next year’s edition of PDSFORUM.

We are already looking forward to the next edition of PDSFORUM. So stay tuned for more to come!

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