Industry 4.0 is a revolution for every industry in many ways. It also gives an opportunity for the providers of predictive simulation whose efforts to get wide recognition have been less successful in the past: too complex, too costly, no data were the usual excuses for not simulating. Now, Industry 4.0 does bring two key elements to predictive simulation: recognition as a key technology to drive improved customer value at lower cost and effortless availability of data.
This presentation looks briefly at how simulation is evolving over the years from a one-shot programming tool towards a seamless engine for fast decision making. This emphasizes that connectivity, analytics and integration have always been key drivers in Witness development.
The presentation uses examples of recent projects in many sectors including automotive and aeronautics to illustrate how Industry 4.0 is generating opportunities for simulation: co-design of a production cell between an equipment supplier and the customer, automating material handling, scheduling production using an automated simulation tool connected to SAP, supply chain master planning to meet multi-sourcing constraints, etc.
Finally the presentation takes a look at perspectives with simulation applications, tool deployment on the Cloud and 4.0 related features that are being added to Witness.
