Manufacturing better products faster and more sustainably by bridging the gap between design and simulation.

Dassault Systèmes needs no introduction, but to the uninitiated, it is a global company that provides businesses and individuals with 3D design software, virtual worlds, and solutions. In early May 2025, Dassault Systèmes held its flagship event, the 3DEXPERIENCE Modeling & Simulation (MODSIM) India 2025, at Pune. The event was attended by over 300 professionals including R&D and design engineers from diverse industries – automotive, aerospace and heavy engineering – to gain insights into the latest developments in the modeling & simulation universe and how these developments shrink the time to market.

Over the last three decades, Dassault Systèmes has acquired a diverse portfolio of software brands, and these are now leveraged on the company’s 3DEXPERIENCE platform. Some of the key software brands under Dassault Systèmes include CATIA (product design and engineering), SIMULIA (virtual prototyping and simulation), DELMIA (digital manufacturing), ENOVIA (Product Lifecycle Management), 3DVIA (3D space planning for homes), SOLIDWORKS (product development and design), and GEOVIA (for modeling, design, and simulation of infrastructure and natural resources). Additionally, brands like NETVIBES (information intelligence), BIOVIA (scientific solutions), MEDIDATA (for life sciences), and OUTSCALE (infrastructure for business experiences) are also part of the Dassault Systèmes ecosystem.

What MODSIM (short for Modeling & Simulation) does is bring together two of these brands – CATIA and SIMULIA – to unify computer-aided design (CAD) and engineering simulation (CAE) into a single, integrated workflow on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. This enables engineers and designers to:

·         Accelerate innovation by reducing reliance on physical prototypes

·         Improve product performance by testing virtual twins early in the design process

·         Enhance collaboration across teams with real-time, model-based decision-making, and

·         Reduce errors and rework by eliminating data transfer between separate tools.

In essence, MODSIM helps companies design better products faster and more sustainably by bridging design and simulation into a continuous, data-driven process, acoss diverse industry segments including manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, infrastructure, life sciences, and more.

The day’s proceedings started with an interesting session addressed by Rajiv Aramadaka, Director, CATIA Sales & Global Affairs, and Ankur Sharma, Director, SIMULIA Sales, Dassault Systèmes India. The theme was Generative Experiences with MODSIM: Reshaping the Future of Innovation. This set the tone for the proceedings of the day.

What followed was an insightful presentation by Ashok Joshi, Head – Product Design, Kinetic Engineering & Kinetic Veolia, under the theme Unified Design & Simulation for New Product Development. In a presentation peppered with facts and figures plus personal anecdotes, Joshi drew attention to the fact that two of the top 4 global companies in passenger cars and SUVs are Indian OEMs! In CVs, Tata Motors is global No. 1, with Ashok Leyland not too far behind, with VE and BharatBenz also doing well. In Tractors, Mahindra holds 40% of the global market share, besides the country’s near total domination in 2- and 3-wheelers. The figures are astounding – 20 million 2-wheelers, 4 million passenger cars, 1 million CVs, 1 million tractors, and 1 million 3-wheelers are manufactured in India annually! Sharing an anecdote about Tata Motors at the turn of the millenium, Joshi noted how, when Venkat Sumantran joined the company in 2001, a proposal to have a 100-strong R&D team did not enthuse him. The visionary Sumantran who had worked at GM Technical Center in the US, insisted and got a 2,500 strong R&D team in place and the result is for all to see today. Similar thinking in Mahindra under Dr Pawan Kumar Goenka and other automakers paved the way for the glory days the Indian automotive scene represents today. Another example was that of the huge transformation of Hero MotoCorp after the separation from Honda.

“Behind this success lies the evolution of Indian automotive R&D and the efforts of thousands of engineers working in Design CoEs, Virtual Validation teams, the Physical Validation teams, a very good support from good quality Tier I and Tier II suppliers, and the excellence achieved in manufacturing and effective Marketing, Sales & Service networks supported with consumer finance,” asserted Joshi. As a result, India products have become more reliable, more durable, more refined in terms of NVH, safer with 5 star NCAP ratings, have good vehicle dynamics, and comfortable ride and handling. Joshi acknowledged the role of companies like Dassault Systèmes and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform in this transformation.

Another interesting session was MODSIM Powered Digital Transformation at Honda, conducted by Dhiraj Nahar, Industry Process Expert Director, Dassault Systèmes, who was joined by Shigeto Yasuhara, General Manager of Development Division-1, Honda Motor Company, by remote. It presented the journey of Honda and its association with Dassault Systèmes that began in a small way in 1980, but has since developed into closer cooperation from 2022, followed by a series of MODSIM workshops held since then, culminating in the MODSIM Summit held in February 2025. The session showcased Honda's journey in adopting SIMULIA for structural and CFD simulations, and how the company utilises simulation to accelerate digital transformation.

The highlight of the morning was the session ‘Transforming Modeling & Simulation Using Generative Experiences’, where Klaus Krohne, SIMULIA APAC Senior Sales Director, and Praveen Mysore, Industry Consultant Director, shared insights on how integrating modeling, simulation, data, and AI is reshaping product development—from concept to manufacturing. MODSIM is enabling engineers and designers to make faster, smarter decisions by breaking down silos between design and simulation—leading to better innovation, reduced costs, and accelerated time-to-market. MODSIM allows users to give shape to imagination, and in the process also reduces days and hours of work to minutes and seconds.

Later talking to the mediapersons, Klaus Krohne further elaborated on what MODSIM does. Dassault Systèmes is a hard core technology company, bringing cutting-edge technology in design and engineering for manufacturing with over 40 years history. But technology alone doesn't really change things. It's how it is used. He likened this to driving a car to get from point A to B. One has to first learn how to drive, then drive it efficiently through traffic in a large city in order to not get stuck for hours. “This is exactly what MODSIM does. It changes the way we use and apply technology efficiently and achieve a step change in the efficiency, the time it takes to develop new products. It also enables a look in the future how artificial intelligence, which is on everybody's mind now, combined with those technologies, shall provide the next step change in product development and workflows,” he said.

“As stated earlier, the term MODSIM is derived from modeling and simulation, and these two things used to be siloed in the past. People were modeling and they were just pushing the model to the analysis team and they were doing the validation part. And that was really bringing down the efficiency from the timeline point of view because those days we could see that product development, e.g., a new car, literally used to take about five years time. This is now squeezed to two years or even 18 months, and this is simply not possible to do this the old, siloed way of doing things. Hence we have brought these two communities together and leveraged the MODSIM technology where you can model and synchronously simulate, verify, validate and mature the model, simultaneously. This squeezing of time is unthinkable without MODSIM. Companies on their part are adopting MODSIM in order to not just squeeze the time but also ensure the right design quality, and improved productivity,” said Pravin Mysore.

The MODSIM event thus brought together domain experts from Dassault Systèmes on the one hand, and companies that have successfully leveraged the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to great advantage, showcasing their success stories, and inspiring others to embark on their respective digital transformation journeys.