SOLIDWORKS World 2018 Recap: The Future of PLM and Beyond

At SOLIDWORKS World 2012 in San Diego, California, Vice Chairman and CEO of Dassault Systems, Bernard Charles, introduced the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to the SOLIDWORKS community. Bernard explained the concept as “beyond PLM” connecting companies, users, and processes. The idea was introduced as a simple compass that represented the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Over the next 6 years, the SOLIDWORKS community has been slowly introduced to details about the platform, further explaining the vision of the 3DEXPERIENCE.

Bernard Charles introduces the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform to the SOLIDWORKS community at SWW 2012.

This year at SOLIDOWKRS World 2018 was no exception. The introduction of SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE PLM Services on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform was unveiled by Milos Zupanski, Director or Product Portfolio Management, in one if the keynote presentations (begins at the 21:38 minute marker). This service offering provides basic “turnkey” PLM functionality to your document management needs. Since this is a cloud service, there is no need to invest in server hardware and maintenance. While this is a major benefit to cost of ownership of a PLM system, many companies are still very leery of having their IP (intellectual property) hosted on a cloud service. Dassault Systems has ensured that they use the best possible security measures and encryption that the cloud computing industry offers. Even with that concern, as the cost of ownership in cloud computing decreases, the cloud based IP storage model should become more widely accepted  and begin to phase out the current On-Premise models. Cloud computing in general is already here and is incorporated in many aspects of our lives. Our online banking, Amazon, Microsoft Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud, and social media streams are just some examples.

SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE PLM Services on the cloud

ENOVIA has been a major component of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform for years, but SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE PLM Services will bring the ENOVIA experience to the cloud. Pricing hasn’t been announced as of yet, but the hope would be to introduce the capabilities of ENOVIA to a wider market by making it economically feasible and will eventually include migration paths for SOLIDWORKS PDM Pro.

ENOVIA integration in SOLIDWORKS. The foundation of the SOLIDWORKS 3DEXPERIENCE PLM Services.

So is this the future of document management or PLM? The concepts are definitely on trend with where other technologies are headed. If you are in the SOLIDWORKS Ecosystem, you will certainly want to keep an eye on this development over the course of 2018 and beyond.

3DEXPERIENCE Compass