Mike Bradford of Dassault Systèmes on May 21 covered how virtual models, driven by AI (artificial Intelligence) and data sciences, are helping businesses—from freight and passenger railroads to suppliers—improve performance, boost efficiency, and achieve sustainability goals.
His presentation took place on the exhibit floor of Railway Interchange 2025, as part of the RSSI Innovation Theater.
Bradford, DELMIA Strategic Business Development and Marketing Director for Dassault Systèmes, spotlighted the 3DEXPERIENCE® platform, which connects people, ideas, data, and processes/solutions in a single environment that enables “secure, real-time collaboration on any device.”
The platform is said to “expand the digital twin to a virtual twin.” The company explains that a digital twin establishes a digital representation of a real-world component or process. In the manufacturing industry, for example, this “data-driven computer model takes inputs from the real-world, which allows a product to be monitored or to control a process optimally,” according to Dassault Systèmes, which has offices in North America, Africa and the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America. “Later, it also feeds back data from a deployed product, creating a constant cycle of improvement. This helps manufacturing industries improve products used in everyday life, as well as the equipment that produces those goods. This not only accelerates innovation initiatives, but it does so sustainably: Manufacturers can simulate and evaluate impacts prior to production of a physical product, reducing their carbon footprint.”
A virtual twin “considers an entire system of systems, including the environment in which the physical object exists,” according to the company. “This makes it possible to simulate in the virtual world the consequences of each modification or optimization of an individual product.” Users can design and digitally test new products, facilities, and production methods before implementing them.
Bradford told Railway Interchange attendees that a passenger railroad, for example, could better determine where to build a new rail station. “They could go through multiple ‘what if’ scenarios and simulations to come up with the best location for that new station,” he said. “So, [the virtual twin] enables you to model, simulate, and optimize, so that you can make better, more informed decisions, and it’s collaborative, so that people can work together.”
Rolling stock, components, and signaling/electronics manufacturers can “define production processes for efficiency and minimize waste and scrap”; “reduce failures and improve quality during manufacturing”; and “synchronize material supply with production in real time,” according to Bradford. Freight and passenger railroads, he noted, can improve fleet and crew planning, and better plan, schedule and execute service.
Among the worldwide users of the 3DEXPERIENCE® platform are Alstom, in Europe, for railcar manufacturing and KiwiRail in New Zealand, for rail freight planning.
To learn more, visit booth No. 818.
