The world is moving at the speed of software

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For hundreds of years, the world has been moving at the speed of materials. People in the industry often say: “A generation of materials, a generation of equipment.” The technological innovation of materials and the development of equipment/products are always interactive and promote each other. However, although this industrial law still continues to be effective, it has been superimposed on another higher level and faster iterative speed of industrial development law: “One generation of software, one generation of equipment”.

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In the physical space, it is still “a generation of materials, a generation of equipment”, while in cyberspace, it is already “a generation of software, a generation of equipment”. Also, software is evolving much faster than materials. Software is increasingly manipulating physical devices in its own precise programs, defining manufacturing and management processes, and even defining manufacturing. When the people, machines, objects and business activities in the enterprise have their “digital twins”, when the various data of the enterprise are flowing on the “digital main line”, when the software is everywhere, we can almost assert: today’s world is developing at the speed of software!

A strong evidence is the change of the global listed company list, the top five companies have been from more than a decade ago, most of them have a hundred years of accumulation of energy, finance, retail and other traditional giant enterprises, from 2016, has become all from Silicon Valley with a strong software background of emerging high-tech companies. It can be seen that software, as a new driving force for enterprise development, has an unusual role in “accelerating” enterprises.

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The top five publicly traded companies in the world are all software companies

Not only are emerging high-tech companies taking the lead globally, but established traditional companies are also accelerating their digital transformation. If you look at the number of lines of code, the super arms supplier Lockheed Martin has surpassed Microsoft to become the world’s largest software company, Siemens has become the second largest software company in Europe, 60% of Rockwell’s employees are software developers, GE has once declared that it will become the world’s largest software company in the next five years, and Tesla S series models have more than 400 million lines of software code. Software costs account for more than 40% of the vehicle.

In China, the development history of software-led high-tech companies also proves this, and the growth rate of BAT and other enterprises is much higher than the growth rate of traditional enterprises.

Industrial software is the core soft equipment with strategic significance

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In the nooks and nooks, visible and invisible, software plays a role that we can or can’t imagine.

Aided product development – Large enterprises have long used computer aided software as a digital development tool in product development. According to the article “Digitalization Past, Present and Future” by Ning Zhenbo, chief consultant of AVIC Information Technology Center, In 1986, Boeing began to use 3D digital technology for 747-400 hydraulic piping system, 3D conceptual design and spatial layout of PD41 segment, 767-200RB211 3D digital prototype and manufacturing, 737-500 3D production process, V22 pipeline circuit coordination and verification, 767-200 flight capsule 3D manufacturing process, and other technologies. The digital pre-assembly of section 757-46, the 3D design and manufacturing process of section 767-20043, and the 100% 3D design process of the 77741 terminal cockpit were applied and verified. As a result, the research and development efficiency is greatly improved and the product accuracy is improved. Compared to its predecessor, the 767, the 777’s development cycle has been reduced from 12 years to 4.5 years, and the first 777 built is better than the 400th 747, which has been built for 24 years!

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Li Yizzhang, president of the company, wrote that the entire development process of the Boeing 787 uses more than 8,000 kinds of software, of which less than 1,000 kinds are commercial software, and the rest of the 7,000 kinds of software are private software accumulated by Boeing for many years, including the core engineering technology of the Boeing Company. Anyone can build a world class plane without Boeing. NASA, together with GE, Pratt & Whitney and other companies, after 20 years of development of NPSS software, embedded a large number of engine design knowledge, methods and technical parameters, can complete a round of aero engine design within a day. The U.S. AVM program achieved the success of the verification project in 2013, and transferred the successful experience to the U.S. Intelligent Manufacturing National Innovation Network program, which became an important support for the U.S. digital design and manufacturing innovation center. Although the core technologies involved in AVM are not publicized on a large scale like the industrial Internet, big data, industrial software and other information technologies, they represent the core logic of American industry and engineering technology, which is also the most valuable thing in the process of re-industrialization in the United States.

Software embedded products – In common high-tech products, the software “volume” can be large or small, ranging from dozens of lines of code to millions of lines of code. The amount of software in some special equipment has reached a staggering level. For example, a luxury car today has more than 200 embedded systems and more than 100 million lines of software code. A Boeing 787 has more than 1 billion lines of code; The United States F22 fighter jet is known as the “flying supercomputer”, it has 13 sets of supercomputers, including radar, flight control, fire control, navigation, weather, non-avionics system computers. Its simplified version of the F35 aircraft, a single on-board software for 9 million lines of code, if you take into account the ground navigation, take-off and landing and other support systems related to its flight activities, F35 a flight behind the operation of hundreds of millions of lines of software code to run an exceptionally powerful digital activity.

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Today, software has made its way into all kinds of machines, devices, and physical entities. Software is not only software, but has become a “soft parts, soft parts, soft machines” with industrial significance, and will eventually form a unique function, which can exist independently or can be combined with soft and hard “soft equipment”. From the perspective of manufacturing, parts, machines, equipment, equipment, etc., are typical industrial terms, and in the past people’s impressions are composed of metal, non-metal and other physical objects. But now the situation has changed dramatically, software is not only an aid to design tools, software has become a part of the equipment, and has become a key core technology, has become the machine/equipment in the “thinker, definer, ruler”. In the past, once a machine/device was built, it was very difficult to change its function. Now you just need to change a version of the software and adjust a few pieces of program code.

Today, if an enterprise wants to develop a more complex new product, it is almost impossible to develop successfully without the support of software environments such as CAX/PLM. New products without software embeddings tend to have low added value. Now people often talk about the word “intelligence”, in fact, most of the use of software to achieve. Therefore, industrial software has become the core element of today’s development of industrial products and industrial products themselves, and has become a veritable core “soft equipment”.