MSC Software Corporation (MSC), a global leader in Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) simulation software and services and part of Hexagon's Manufacturing Intelligence division, has announced that it will provide its customers with free offline licensing and remote access options to help engineering innovation and enable engineers to remain productive while working from home as COVID-19 closes customers offices globally.
In the past, remote working has posed a challenge for the manufacturing industry, with many of its tools and processes being rooted in old-fashioned workflows. The COVID-19 mitigation measures, which have led to vast swaths of the engineering workforce forced out of the factories and offices, have driven the need for a more flexible, distributed mode of operations.
Computer-Aided Engineering and simulation tools can support this evolution, and MSC’s customer-centric move to flip their licensing model to allow for use in the home is proof in point.
Roger Assaker, Chief Customer Engagement Officer of MSC Software, said: “We are adapting to the needs of our customers, and are also adding a helping hand to support their business continuity so they can continue to design, engineer and perform virtual testing outside their place of work. We are facilitating the access to our software, knowledge base and support to enable the creation of even more value with our tools, helping companies to maintain productivity and innovation when many manufacturing lines are down.
Electronic Specifier
Hello and welcome to the latest podcast from electronic specify insights the current situation around Coronavirus is creating challenges for everyone in every industry. We're all getting used to different methods of working as the lockdown around much the world shows no sign of abating. And we all continue to work remotely. Engineers, of course are no different. And for this podcast we caught up with Keith Perrin, industry director for electronics at MSC software Corporation a global leader in Computer Aided engineering simulation software and services and part of Mexicans manufacturing Intelligence Division up for discussion was the company's recent announcement that it will provide its customers with free offline licencing and remote access options to help them remain productive while working from home. As COVID-19 closes customer offices around the world in the past remote working is pose a challenge for the manufacturing industry with many of its tools and processes being rooted in old fashioned workflows, whoever the COVID-19 mitigation measures which have led to vast swathes of the engineering workforce forced out of the factories, and offices as driven the need for more flexible distributed modes of operations. So without further ado, I'll hand over to Keith to explain a little more.
So I'm responsible as I think it was Rachel earlier said, for electronics industry, hexagon manufacturing, and MSC. So MSC software, has for many years been producing engineering software, most of its design for designers and engineers to predict how their products or processes are going to work in the real world digitally. So for example, the aerodynamics of the car, we can calculate that digitally before we get anywhere near putting the car in a fast rate, or how the car handles for example, in the automotive space, in the electronic space, it might be the cooling around a particular piece of electronics, or how about electronics is going to withstand vibration temperatures that were part of hexagon, a parent company, there, we have a whole range of additional software for the widest sphere of engineering, production, design and quality. And they're able to rather uniquely actually marry I guess, the digital world with the physical one. So for example, we can scan in models, physical artefacts off the end of a production line, bring them into the digital world, and use that as a basis for design modifications as a simple example, or perhaps reverse that. So I think hexagons got a history going back quite a while and were rather unique in our industry, I think I'll bring that together. In the electronics world, our biggest customers include the likes of the Nikon, Panasonic General Electric, Mitsubishi, Samsung makes those kind of either uses quite a range of capabilities across that that kind of continuum from design, where somebody's trying to figure out how a circuit might work or a PCB might be designed, or the enclosure in which it's in right through to engineering, where we've got to figure out how we are going to make those great ideas work predictably, right through to manufacturing where we've got to make millions of them, and then into the quality area where we've got to make sure that what we're actually producing is what we need.
That's the high level that makes, it does Yes, indeed. And so what kind of the key clients who do you work with, I know the original mission of the centre, I mentioned the likes of Ford, and Airbus. So quite sort of, you know, high end companies,
definitely. So in the biggest scheme of things outside of the electronics world are Ford and Airbus, Boeing, General Motors as some of our biggest customers, they're using those across the wider sphere of what would go into a car or plane. So that can range from electronics in your case right through to the airframe. And in cases Airbus also the way I mentioned aerodynamics, or flight control systems, the flight behaviours of the aircraft fuselage, the wings, and the sails, the engines and so on, all can be simulated design design, with our software. And so we do quite a lot of that. So, as you imagine, there's a natural fit across many of these industries Electronics is interesting, because it's, it's in most industries, right, increasingly, in most industries, developing smarter products. I mean, I met a furniture company recently, they were trying to make smart furniture, imagine turning up at a desk and the desk recognising you, and adjust the height of the desk and adjust the seat to the way you want. It was what they were trying to say. Yeah, a lot of growth in electronics across all of these industries. It's just kind of funky example. Electronics was growing rather nicely, generally. Indeed, indeed.
And in terms of these free elearning and work from home licences, what are the kind of the nuts and bolts behind behind those and what exactly did they constitute?
Also, a lot of what's going on there is actually a continuation of a theme that we have particularly MSC, unusually, amongst our industry, we have a rather unique way of licencing. Our software, we call it MSC one, it's essentially a token licence so they go by so what you can do is use that token against any number of our products. So as you can imagine, we have quite a few products. They are useful at various different times and Design lifecycle the lifecycle of the product, or processes being defined, they're also useful in different ways. They provide different aspects of what's needed. So what we find is people want to use them at different times flexibly when they need them. And they don't want to be bothered having to buy separate licences each and every time, they have a need. So this, this token system allows them to flex. So for example, I can buy some tokens that used a one product one day, and I can flip almost literally the next day, or maybe even at the same time to use those same tokens on another product. So they operate across all products. That way, that might be quite useful, especially right now, people are looking to use what they have more flexibly. So that's where the work from home amongst other things came in. Not only do they want to be able to move their resources around, which is essentially what they're doing, and they move, like that token from one product to another, they also want to licence that you will have a right to use that software to the cloud to another site. So MSC one allows them to do that. So what we've done with this work from home ideas, extend that idea. So that removes any obstacles in getting somebody working from home. That's what's happened, I'm sure you've noticed, we've been certainly watching them. Sentence some of the recent PMI figures for manufacturing worldwide, there's a lot of companies out there focusing more on the most pressing needs to have some level of core operations to go stabilise their their operations and start to preserve cash. So they're really looking to save money, a lot of times moving home moving, that requires us to move from a physical interaction that we may have had in the past, to more of a digital one, we got to help them start utilising what they've got today more flexibly so they can twist and turn and work their way through it, we got to help them. Actually, I mean, going back to MSU, one idea that's putting a lot more focus on that sort of idea with our customers with MSU. One rather than, you know, buying a traditional licence and having it locked down on a particular machine. I mean, those ideas are somewhat archaic anyway. But I think this particular thing that we're going through right now at COVID, is really putting a lot of pressure on that idea. So hopefully that explains some of the background, the nuts and bolts of where we're going. I think these latest ideas is the least one of the elements that we're putting in place to support it, there's actually quite a few more elements around it that needed to match. It's not it's not just a licencing thing. It's quite a bit more that needs to happen. The chair, guns a bit more depth. Yeah,
please do yes. for that. It's great. Yeah, I was gonna ask is, is this something that was that you guys had the capability of previously? And it's just been pushed to the forefront? Because of the because of the current crisis? Or is it something that you've that you've had to develop and put in place in response to covid 19? outbreak?
Yeah, great question. So we have the core capabilities before, what this has done is, as you say, we've been asked, and encourage to bring it to the forefront more, and we've accelerated some of the things we're already doing. And there's some things that are going to continue in the background that we haven't announced yet, which will also be accelerated. So you know, have been there before MSC one has been around, once off the top my head a couple of years now at least, I've been at MSC, two years. And it was here when I joined. So prior to that, at least two, three years, and what has happened is that it forced us to look more detail at some of the nuances and in some of the details to make sure that all the restrictions as much as we can have removed to enable somebody to succeed with it. And that's what we've been doing. So for example, the work from home thing is a natural one, right, where we'll relax some of the conditions, sort of background checks that we'll do to make sure that people can get access to them doesn't always require some VPN magic to go on. For example, we're also making our staff more available, right. So simple things like that. So all our training material, you know, we've opened up our training material online, to folks, we've seen a good uptake on that we can track that and see what people are doing. And interestingly, we've seen a greater uptake in Europe and Asia than we have in the US, which actually surprised me, I would have thought it would be the other way around. I'm assuming that because Asia and Europe locked down earlier. That's why we've seen the uptick, and the US has really yet to embrace the full working from home ethic, perhaps. But that's an example online training. We've also seen a need for our guys to be open as well. So the technical staff that we have, rather than visiting people physically to advise them and help them learn how to use our software for whatever challenge they're doing. We've started opening up clinics, more and more doing online learning sessions lunch and learns coffee mornings in one case, right? So it's not just a question of licencing there's actually quite a bit more that we've needed to wrap around it to make things happen. So it's just one element that I actually think some ways were the way we announced it being a bit of an engineer. I kind of think well we've had this for ages. Why all of a sudden work from home. There's one element. And now it's newsworthy, but hang on a minute, we're kind of doing this. But hey, I am not. I'm not even. I'm not in the business of wrestle
as to implement something like this. I mean, is it is it presented any particular challenges to you guys,
mostly in the world? Frankly, what there's a couple of things that springs to mind, there has been some challenges, right? The first one is what we're also affects as everybody else. So as we tried to put something new in place, we're having to deal with the same remote access. You're working digitally environment, and everybody else's map comes with its own pressure. So we've had to figure out ways to be a bit more nimble and agile, to get something moving quickly to be responsive, even though the efforts added on to what we were already doing. But that's always going to be a challenge. That sort of ideal has expanded to, as I said earlier, our own support staff, for example, previously, they may have turned up on site to get some advice and help locally. That's what where we've been traditionally. So now, we got to figure out how to get online, how to set up a virtual session with somebody share best practices, in some cases and give advice. In some cases, that sounds rather obvious. It's easy, right? We're doing it, almost, I could set up a screen share with you. And it'd be no problem at all, in the more traditional world, or the less secure world, that's fine. But a lot of our customers like Airbus, or like Boeing, also worked for the military. So we also have some constraints around some of that, that make this a double, a little bit harder than just like setting up the screenshare session, if you know what I mean. Many cases, we're dealing with quite sensitive intellectual property. So it can be a challenge.
Yes. Well, I was going to ask, read various reports about the increase in in hacking that's occurring over the last month or so. And the issues around companies allowing their workforce to work remotely and work from home. So is there a security element here that needs to be taken into consideration?
So the good news is that well, I mentioned that MSU. One, we've been doing this sort of thing for a while. And we're well used to dealing with some of the customers I talked about earlier. And we've figured out ways to deal with it. What this has really done with those companies, what we're looking at is doing it more at scale, right. So before, it may have been rather limited in scope, you will maybe there's one guy in an office who has some special access to be able to help out the likes of Boeing or whoever. And now we're having to figure out how to do that a bit more broadly and a bit faster. So it's something we've had to bear in mind. The good news is that the extensions of doing that over and above what we were doing out for us not a massive deal, because we're doing it anyway. But it has, it is something that had to be borne in mind, you know, just simply popping up on a on a zoom call, when somebody's showing you how a jet engine works, or perhaps more sensitive information isn't a great idea of the people involved, have to think about doing things like that before they do it, obviously, on both sides of the equation, both sides and customers. So the good news is, we've been doing it for years, we do not have to do it. The tougher part is doing it more at scale now and doing it more often. Sure, sure.
And in terms of the industries that you work across, is there been one particular industry that is in terms of the uptake of this type this what you're offering is? Is there been one particular industry that's been more proactive than than others? Or is it been pretty recently uptake pretty standard across the board. So we thought
there's been one more than others, what we have seen is changing. So for example, when things first locked down in China, obviously a lot of production operations started to seek. So on the manufacturing side, where they're doing active manufacturing, we thought things slow down a little bit, right, as you might imagine, but on the r&d side, things were still cooking along. So if one of those companies had a design site, say in an example, Sweden, which they do, in their case, I'm thinking of the r&d folks at that point, but still continuing to work. That was all good. Things in China opened up and things in Sweden, kind of start to lock down a little bit, we see the pressure moving, right, we see all of that resource that was freed up in Sweden suddenly start to lock down, but things start to open up in China. That's exactly the sort of resource that we needed to support. So we've seen different patterns like that. Yeah, my own experience, very much related to electronics did see that kind of process go on. And I know it's happened in other places, I'd like to believe and we'll see how stats prove it out. But the more global and operation perhaps the more and the more flexible the operation or company has will enable them to weather this a little bit better than some others. So I'm hoping anyway.
And you mentioned that the the licences were just one element of what you guys are offering and you intimated that you know there was other parts of it, you're going to get more detail about those other elements
as well just touch on them somehow. All right, so one of the best resources that we have for customers is not just the software, it's our people, we've got one of the most of the industry's most experienced folks out there, largely because some of our software has been around a lot longer. I don't know if you know, but one of our software's helped the moon landings was originally where it came from a late 60s, it's been around, we've still got engineers who will claim to remember that as well scarily, the younger ones, tend to poke fun at them. But that's the way the world is right. There's a lot of experience out there that we provide to our customers. With us, it's not just a question of throwing software at the problem and expecting a customer to get on with it. And I think right now, that's, that's a really good trait to have. Because we can help the customers get through this as well help them focus on some of the challenges and help them through it. You know, when you're at home, you don't have access to all the resources that you would have had to pass the office around with your colleague. So we've helped him for that. So some of these things like clinics, or how to sessions, online quickstart jumpstarts meetings call that's really helping the online training materials as well is quite important. The training material we provide is not just a question of learning, as you get up to speed with the software to begin with. Usually, it comes with a whole bunch of best practices as well. So as you're trying to say, research, a particular new problem, maybe a piece of electronics or in an aircraft, you often have to go back to that same resource to see how somebody else did it, for example. So that sort of material is quite useful, for example. So there's the personnel side of things desperately important, in addition to the licencing. As well, though, there's the availability of where this runs, right. So the work from home bed is a function of people using taking home the licence maps using a laptop or something like that. Now, we've seen the other side of things where perhaps we need a different data centre, or move it to a different computing cluster or move to the cloud. So we are seeing a lot of those conversations starting to come as well. Right. So the moving it around to different data centres in different clouds is petrified. We've been able to do that for a while. But that's also quite important that we're able to help customers do that easily. I hope that makes some sense.
And in terms of your competitors, is there anybody else aided they have the capability to implement something similar to what you guys are doing? And are they are they are they kind of following suit?
I think the industry as a whole is responding really well actually, I gotta say my hat's off, I have seen our committee, I haven't been paying too much attention to it. Honestly, I was looking at one this morning. So because I think I've seen a good response. Generally, I like to think, obviously, we're a slightly better place, it's unusual for companies in our industry to have that token based licencing, where you can use the software is one piece of software one day, and then flip to use the same software to use a different piece of software the next day for the same amount. most traditional software, you It's a bit like buying a book, right, you'll buy a book, well, if you want this other book, that's gonna be it's gonna be another, I don't know, whatever it is, whatever it costs, right, and you keep buying books, and the books sit on your shelf, well, what we're selling is more of an access to a library, right versus buying a book, right? So the ability to take a book down one day, get to grips it and put it back on the shelf and pick up another book is what we're providing, whereas somebody else will try and sell you another book. So that's it, we think is very important idea for us to be very flexible, even for the the COVID problems. So and like I said earlier, you know, are people really very important, particularly with some of the rather more difficult engineering, or a certain design element because of our backgrounds. Some of our folks are leaders in their particular fields. Composite designs, for example, is a really great example, where a lot of our guys have been driving r&d and research in those fields, generally, not just with software. So they've got a lot of experience.
And what sort of feedback have you had so far from your some of your key customers, presumably in it under the current circumstances? It's been, it's been something of a godsend, isn't it?
Well, we certainly that's what we're seeing. I think we had a quote, come back. So I believe Ford have been particularly pleased with what's been going on in Europe, they've furloughed a good chunk of their team. So they've had some very positive things to say. Yeah, generally, the feedback has been good. We like to look at the numbers and the take up, you know, in the first month, I think we had 500 applicants, so it's not bad for us quite pleased with that. It tells us that people do want to it is useful and people finding use it and we can see that in the numbers with the take up in Europe and Asia in particular. I suspect the US will come back.
Indeed. What sort of plans have you guys put in place for you know, a bit a bit further down the road as COVID-19 crisis abates and and we come out the other side, you guys got any specific plans in place to, you know, to mitigate the challenges ahead?
And we are looking at that? Yes. I think it's fair to say Say that nobody really knows what the other side is. I have my own belief, I am sure that the ideas of remote working cloud and virtual assistants are going to become more and more commonplace. Traditionally, actually, we've seen a bit of reluctance in this field, in engineering design, in particular, to go on to the cloud logic as in some of the IP concerns that have been outlined earlier, there's been a lot of private cloud activities and not so much public cloud activity. And we're starting to get people looking at that in different ways. That's an example of how we might embrace things a little bit more deeply in that particular area, right cloud, more distributed computing, or federated computing, all that kind of stuff, I think we'll be looking at that more and more, I also think that we're going to be looking at supporting our customers more and more virtually, as we get used to some of these ideas, and realise, sort of put in place, some of these best practices that we've learned, and the more secure areas and perhaps expand them appropriately to others. I think we'll see more and more of that. So those are some of the elements of alluded to, that we are looking at, but I will expect more and more as you can imagine, as well. There's a whole bunch of ideas that we're having around supporting those in hardship. So if you are furloughed, money income for you, but you are an engineer, how can we help you programmes that might help that also, other programmes to more generally help facilitate how we get through this? Right. So actually a really good example, since you're in the UK are detecting? And I suppose you saw it a news day before last? And I didn't know what kind of very genuine question, the reason why I mentioned it is, some of our software was actually featured on it, because we simulated coughing, simulated a cough with a face mask in it and use that simulation as part of a wider discussion around whether and how we should be using face masks. And that's an example of an actual fact as using some engineering design software for a greater simulation race, you're seeing that quite a lot. A lot of our staff are actually getting involved with customers involved in the COVID response to help. So another simple example, in Belgium, one of our guises 3d printing pays for the face of the support that puts on their face masks. A lot of that going on. I also see that sort of community engagement going up as well. So I think there's a lot of change still to come. I'm hoping like everybody else is running short of it.
Thank you very much for your time and insight there, Keith. That was much appreciated. That concludes today's podcast, if any of our listeners have any questions for Keith around the MSC offerings, and please share them with us at editor at electronic specified.com. And we will share the answers on the podcast section of this website. Thanks again and we'll catch up with you next time.
Electronic specifier