Digital Thread Latest Chapter in Rev-Sim Content Lineup

As part of its charter to help democratize simulation, Revolution in Simulation (Rev-Sim), an independent organization formed to promote more widespread use of analysis tools in the design process, is adding digital thread topics to its online content and discussion forums.

Rev-Sim, founded by a trio of veterans in the simulation and design tool space, is an open and free web-based platform delivering access to what it bills as the largest repository of materials related to the trend of democratizing simulation. Democratization of simulation aims to make analysis tools—which have traditionally been expensive and difficult to use—more accessible to the average engineering user so simulation becomes a more integral part of the design cycle.

“The goal of the online initiative is to be a resource for organizations that want to implement the next generation of simulation within an organization so it has far greater impact than it currently does,” notes Malcolm Panthaki, one of the co-founders of Rev-Sim as well as vice president of analysis solutions at Aras and the former CTO and founder of Comet Solutions, which was acquired by Aras last year. Bob Farrell Jr., founder of Farrell MarCom Services, and Rich McFall, managing practice director at PLM Alliances, are co-founders.

For years, simulation has been relegated to pockets of specialists and experts, which meant that tools and simulation data were primarily siloed within an organization and not readily available to influence design decisions, Panthaki says. In addition, simulation processes have been cumbersome and slow, requiring a lot of manual labor to optimize and share models. “The result was that simulation often lags behind the rest of product development processes,” Panthaki says. Now that it’s clear simulation is here to stay, he explains, the mission is all about unlocking its potential for the entire product organization.

As companies see value in the digital thread concept, there’s even more incentive to expose simulation capabilities and data to a greater audience. “Organizations that want to undertake the digital enterprise understand that it’s not just a matter of creating content, but connecting content and maintaining that thread over time,” Panthaki says.

In addition to providing a range of resources keyed to the digital thread theme, Rev-Sim will also make materials and expert forums available to cover Simulation Process Data Management (SPDM), a platform the founders contend is fundamental to the digital thread given its ability to manage simulation data and processes across the enterprise. “SPDM ensures that simulation data is not in isolation, but rather connected to other things like test data, maintenance data, and requirements,” Panthaki says.

Rev-Sim educates its audience, which is now up to around 1,000 to 1,200 visitors per month—a large percentage of which are return visitors—by aggregating all available simulation-related content, including write-ups on conferences, blogs, articles, and white papers. Each topic is managed by a volunteer moderator, who is an active member of the simulation community.

While the benefits of simulation-led design have definitely reached mainstream consciousness, there is still the usual inertia and struggle to get organizations to rethink long-standing engineering and design practices. “Complex technology has been around for a long time, but people get used to things a certain way and they don’t like to change,” Panthaki says. “We hope simulation gathers steam as more success stores are presented and made available.”

Watch this video example of Rev-Sim’s Virtual Coffee Break series designed to educate engineers on potential simulation use cases.