Strategies for industry to engage in materials modelling

A White Paper to support industry on the road to making materials modelling and simulation an integral part of research, product development, upscaling and product life cycle management, thereby contributing to enhanced innovation and competitiveness of European industry on a global level.
Representatives of a range of materials and manufacturing companies contributed to the strategy development in expert meetings and surveys to clearly articulate end-user needs. They identified what barriers need to be overcome to introduce materials modelling into their business cycle or enable an enhanced and more efficient/higher quality use of it and what future developments they foresee to be necessary. They also provided their input regarding a range of tools adapted by the EMMC to probe the state of the industry and provide a framework for strategy development in companies.
A key objective was to assess the impact of materials modelling on an organisation and several useful frameworks, tools and metrics are discussed. First of all, Enterprise Business Levels awareness support analysing and aligning materials modelling activities and strategies with business processes at different levels, from specific tasks to macro processes such as the overall R&D process.
Considering further the role of modelling in R&D processes, an augmented Quantitative Benchmark for Time to Market framework is introduced, which we termed the 4D-QBTM. The QBTM provides a means of analysing and tracking the impact of materials modelling on different stages of R&D while the 4D stands for the four dimensions that provide ‘levers’ for impact: People, Tools, Process and Data. The importance of appropriate KPIs is also highlighted. These can be classified in KPIs that track efficiency (such as speed of getting data) as well as effectiveness such as the probability of advancing to the next stage using materials modelling. Also, KPIs can be distinguished for different levels of business processes within an organisation.
Assessing the economic impact of materials modelling on industrial prosperity requires inclusion of benefits and raising awareness, that gaining benefits often requires to do things differently. Benefit management is introduced as vehicle to assure benefits are materialising.
Several industry representatives contributed their assessments to a materials modelling maturity study from which the current materials modelling state of the art could be established. The current state is promising and so is the awareness of barriers that impede the wider adoption of materials modelling in industry. These representants were also able to give ideas how to overcome these barriers and contributed vividly to suggesting change strategies.
Strategies are outlined to aid materials modelling and simulation becoming an integral part of product life cycle management and making a strong contribution to enhance innovation and competitiveness on a global level.