Whether You’re In IT Or Product Development, Your Simulation Performance Can Improve

Virtual simulation has become a critical enabler to any company looking to design more successful products. The insight that can be derived before a physical prototype is constructed has consistently been shown as a Best-in-Class capability. The traditional way to manage and implement these simulation applications has been to take a siloed approach. However, this tactic can leave huge gaps in an organization’s visibility into simulation performance and breed inefficiencies. There are two groups that a stove-piped simulation platform negatively impacts, Product Designers and IT, and as new Aberdeen research shows, the best simulation platform is a consolidated one.

For IT:

For the IT group, the use of the traditional siloed simulation platform all comes back to waste and inefficiency. First, there is the sheer overhead of relying on multiple simulation vendors – install costs and wasted licenses really add up over time. There is also a lot of time that is wasted as a result of a siloed simulation platform. Tying together different applications for co-simulation and dealing with data transfer issues are some of the drawbacks that IT personnel have to deal with regularly. Successful companies have started to consolidate the number of simulation vendors they use to ease the burden of their IT department. In fact, over half of all respondents indicated that consolidation improved their IT operational efficiency, while only 25 percent said it did not have a positive impact (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Impact Of Consolidation On IT Efficiency

Also, for those of you in the IT group, one thing to keep in mind: 87 percent of designers expected their model sizes to grow in the future. So, even though you may be able to deal with a siloed platform at the moment, computational requirements are going to expand and you can’t keep spending your time gluing workflows together with scripting or other software components. Companies that have consolidated, reported sharp improvements in their analysis performance:

• 17 percent decrease in the time to prepare models for analysis


• 17 percent decrease in the time from set up to results


• 11 percent decrease in computer processing time of analyses

The benefits of a consolidated simulation platform are going to be essential for future simulation models.

For Product Designers:

For the designers, the use of the traditional siloed simulation platform all comes limitation in the amount and breadth of simulation. The insights that virtual simulation has brought to designers has proven invaluable. This naturally has led to companies looking to simulate as early and as often as possible during a products life cycle. In fact, the research shows that Best-in-Class companies are more likely than their peers to simulate product performance from detailed components to manufacturing (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Simulate Early, Simulate Often

However, if designers are stuck with a siloed simulation platform all of these analyses cannot be done. These companies only have the time to simulate the verification and testing of a product. While valuable, the benefits of constant simulation are far more impactful. A siloed platform also inhibits collaboration between designers, which is critical now as products today rely on multiple disciplines of engineering (electrics, structures, fluids). The data back up the thinking as well, those companies that have consolidated experience five fewer hours of wasted time per week on activities (handling large files, data transfer, mesh creation, etc.) that are not analyzing results. This allows the designers in these companies to focus on what is important – an optimal product. Beyond the benefits to these two individual groups it is a benefit to the bottom line, as companies that have made efforts to consolidate the number of simulation vendors they use have seen a 7 percent decrease in TCO the last 12 months. Want to learn more? Join me on April 2nd at 1 pm EST (10 a.m. PST) and find out why a consolidated simulation platform is critical to Best-in-Class product development. In this webinar, we will dive deeper into:

• The inefficiencies that designers and IT have to combat as a result of a siloed simulation purchases


• Why companies have started to look towards consolidation as an effective option


• The benefits that both groups have seen as a result of this consolidation

Can’t make it? Don’t worry – register now, and we’ll remind you to watch the recorded event on-demand.

Whether You’re In IT Or Product Development, Your Simulation Performance Can Improve