I loved this – “Look ma, no hands”. Did you try it in your childhood? Even so, I’m sure it wasn’t about cars. So, now some people in California can say – “No hands math club car”. Google made a techno splash introducing their project of self-driving cars. If you haven’t read about this, take a look on the following article in NYT or take a look on the blog post in Google blog.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAiH1LX8guk]
However, it made me think about some technologies in the PLM domain too.
PLM and Smarter Software
I just want to prevent one possible reaction. This is NOT about knowledge management. I think, a new “smart trend” is to start doing small things that will make overall software smarter. There is one very simple example. Try to write an email in gmail, put inside of the email the following phrase – “please see attached files”. Now, try to send this email without attachment. You will see the following nice message box.
This is a small, but very smart way to make software think instead of you. I’m sure we’ll see much more examples of this kind in the future.
PLM and Systems Engineering
I found system engineering and real-time simulation as an interesting area of PLM that can connect virtual and physical systems. I expect to see more examples when engineers will be able to simulate physical products already at the design phase. CAD/PLM systems contain a lot of information about how a product designed, built and about how a product can behave. Take a look on the following example system engineering and car driving simulation using CATIA software of Dassault System.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAf20JFdTc0]
What is my conclusion? I see a real importance of “smart software” around us. There are lots of things that software can do in order to become smarter and do some work for us. PLM software guys need to look in a mirror and think how to use all information companies are producing using CAD, CAE, CAM, PDM, PLM and other tools in order to make a smarter use of this. I’m sure some simulation software pieces need to be used to optimize a way to drive future cars, but not only. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
