Increasingly complex systems, organizations, and products coupled with budgetary constraints, strict regulatory standards, and ever-evolving threats highlight the need to adapt current practices. The future demands better knowledge transfer and retention to tackle system complexities and an aging work force, more efficient and collaborative ways of integrating different components and disciplines within and between organizations, and a rapid, on-time capitalization of innovative technologies to respond to threats.

Responding to these challenges and the current industry circumstances will require a transformation in the acquisition process, with digitally collaborative ways of working between DoD, Aerospace and Defense firms, and their suppliers. Traditional document-centric approaches will be abandoned in favor of connected and trusted, single-source-of-truth models, providing a “virtual twin”, “systems of systems” representation of future capabilities. A collaborative platform will be required to act as the “glue” between delivery partners. Many Aerospace and Defense organizations are already adopting these principles and methodologies and moving towards Model-based Acquisition.

The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is unique, enabling collaborative Model-based Acquisition and delivering the benefits required by Aerospace and Defense firms. We will discuss the advantages of a model-based approach, to include business benefits, and will address four key challenges in Model-based Acquisition:

• Integrating Innovation: Bringing together expertise and enabling an organization to work as one enterprise
• Optimizing Capability: Affording the ability to decide on the best solution
• Improving Outcomes: Using the same connectivity to manage the complexity of execution
• Maintaining Capability: Maintaining a dominant capability by assuming an embedded approach to systems engineering and technology insertion with the Digital Twin

For many Aerospace and Defense organizations, adopting a Model-Based Digital Enterprise has been vital to program success and part of a dramatic transformation in terms of thinking, culture, and ways of working. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform and Dassault Systèmes’ industry solutions are transforming how Aerospace and Defense does business and is facilitating a digital evolution towards Model-based Acquisition.