The time is clear: the global Coronavirus epidemic, which began in China at the end of 2019, will have a very strong impact on the economic activity of the affected countries but also on the functioning of industrial companies. Two examples from the most affected country to illustrate this reality:
Recall that China’s economic activity, which weighs 16% of that of the planet, was halved last January. Chinese GDP growth is already announced below 4% for 2020, which would be an unprecedented situation for this century.
So what about in Europe and particularly in France?
While European stock markets have plunged more than 15% in a few days, some are anticipating a recession in Germany and Italy (the most affected country in Europe to date). The OECD, for its part, announces Italian growth at zero and + 0.9% for France, which indicates a certain optimism about the rapid resolution of the health crisis. But the worst is to be feared for our Italian neighbors whose country is placed in total containment and in particular for the North including Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna which represent 40% of national GDP and 50% of exports.
How can our companies continue to develop their activities in these sometimes unavoidable conditions of isolation?
The use of digital collaborative work platforms seems to be a real solution in this context. And not only for the industrial world, since the education sector, the first affected by the closures of establishments (there are already more than a hundred schools closed in France while all Chinese schools and universities are remained closed for several weeks), has already reacted and is preparing for the massive use of e-learning. For example, the CNED has already announced that it is ready to deploy digital solutions to provide online courses. In the United States, Google has just announced that its G Suite will be made free until July 1 for education and business. While in China, digitalization is adopted massively by real estate agencies which present virtual tours and sports halls which use live streaming to the delight of their customers. In a country where 850 million people already use their smartphones to do their shopping, pay their bills and consume entertainment content, a backtracking seems unlikely. The digitization of professional collaborations is well underway.
In France, more widely in Europe, companies are increasingly turning to digital solutions that allow them to maintain their activities. It seems certain to many that reducing the impact of this crisis will require the use of digital platforms. Indeed, the use of solutions in SaaS mode, allows everyone to collaborate in real time, to exchange files, to organize exchanges between collaborators and to prioritize information and decisions. In short, digital collaboration allows the company to continue to operate and manage all projects in progress or in preparation.
In the industrial field, the challenge is to get companies that have different professions and different approaches to collaborate around a common project. The stake is that all speak the same language. This common, universal language is images, that is to say digital models in 3 dimensions, as DASSAULT SYSTEMES has always done.
And it is that this common language allows people of technical culture and very different horizons to work together. And suddenly, it’s a source of creativity, innovation, new ideas, and therefore business.
The platform 3dEXPERIENCE is now available for all SMEs and mid-caps in France.
For the price of an espresso per day, you have a collaborative business space (3DDrive, SwYm, 3DPlay). And if you’re a SolidWorks customer, you get a free 5GO Passport.
To find out more, I invite you to watch this short video and this replay that we produced with L’usine Nouvelle.
And what about the industrial tool, how to maintain production ? In this context, can we get around the logistical difficulties?
Among the most innovative solutions, 3D printing offers the opportunity to achieve great savings in resources and time. Which is very appreciable in a crisis condition. When a company receives plans from its design office for printing certain pieces of equipment in 3D, it gains in speed, logistics, and speed to market the finalized equipment.
For example, the Armed Forces staff announced that a team of technicians from the French Navy is using 3D printing on board the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to imagine and produce various spare parts to ensure maintenance. Rafale during the mission.
And this technique is taking over all areas including the printing of metal parts, as proposed by Markforged, an American company that now 3D prints copper parts. Greg Mark, its CEO and founder, explains: “Copper is the engine of our world. He is everywhere. He builds our cars, activates telephones and operates electrical equipment. Copper has always been an expensive and difficult material to machine, incompatible with other 3D printing processes in its pure form. Today we have made it easier and cheaper to produce. Markforged’s 3D printed copper will be a game-changer for the automotive and electronics industries, and it will open the door to innovation in many other areas. ”
As we can see, there are many digital possibilities to face a global health crisis. As Dion Hinchcliffe recalls in an article on ZDNet.com: “While digital tools are essential to enable remote working, it is important to understand how much they alter the art of the possible, not only in terms of skills. and individual digital habits, but also on how these digital tools change and improve the culture of the organization itself ”.
Each crisis is an opportunity for the business world to question its practices, procedures and its own ability to evolve in order to face the challenges to be met. The Covid-19 is no exception to this rule. The digitization of development and industrial production tools did not wait for this epidemic to provide answers and open up new perspectives in collaborative mode.
