You may have caught Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote at Microsoft Build today (24 May). We’re pretty excited about this because there was an exciting design prototype of a future product being showcased, and Satya Nadella gave the world a sneak preview today.
If you missed the keynote, you can have a look at the video Satya shared, here (no sound):
This little glimpse ‘under the hood’ of our software development gives a flavour of the future. A collaborative future for engineers, where issues get addressed in a single group session iteratively, rather than the sequential waterfall process of a problem getting sent from pillar to post and back again, not to mention the frustrations of sharing files, translating formats and – most of all – waiting.
The pandemic and resultant increase in remote working has opened many people’s eyes to the possibilities of virtual collaboration. Software will support and accelerate this trend, bringing new tools that enable more seamless integration and more organic formation teams to solve problems as they inevitably rise in the path from design to finished product.
Think how quick and agile physical product development might be with a software industry ‘scrum’ ethic taking place virtually, with all disciplines able to collaborate and focus in real-time on the same project. Imagine if an AI bot was able to continually monitor progress, and assess the manufacturability of the part as the tweaks and changes were being made. This future is not so far away as digital twins bring together the best available data from metrology, IoT and predictive simulations, while cloud technologies support the data flows required.
As for MS Build, you will find our cloud, UX and development teams actively contributing to the community, so make sure you see the Fluid session. Fluid is a really great open source technology that aligns perfectly with our vision of agile smart manufacturing processes that dissolve the traditional silos slowing down productivity and innovation. It was launched in 2020 and is gradually being integrated into more Microsoft products (such as Office and Teams). We also see its potential to completely transform collaboration with new levels of creative freedom and speed in manufacturing, and from today we’ll be sharing some of this journey with you.
If you’re curious and would like to find out how you can be part of this future, then join us at HxGN LIVE 2022 in Las Vegas, which includes the Future of Manufacturing Summit. Here you will find innovative new ways to digitally transform facilities, assets and workflows to drive productivity from leading manufacturers, disruptors like Divergent, Microsoft CVP Aleš Holeček and my Hexagon colleagues.
