Realize Live Event Focuses on the Growing Ecosystems Around Siemens Xcelerator

“Software vendors throw the best parties.” While this statement remains true in 2023, it must be adapted for industrial software vendors as our industry moves to software-defined solutions: “Industrial software vendors know how to best organize informative events that bring together the industrial community (and throw a great party).”

Realize Live is Siemens’ annual user event hosted by the company’s software arm, which grew out of a large PLM acquisition in 2007. Since then, Siemens has dramatically grown the size of its industrial software portfolio through in-house development and numerous acquisitions to the point that the company now claims to be the largest vendor in this space. Siemens has a habit of tapping seasoned executives from major consumer goods companies to bolster its management team as it navigates the ever-changing currents of the software industry.

House events like Realize Live have advantages for both parties: users are treated to several days of customer-focused presentations and useful break-out sessions, while the vendor keeps the focus on its own solutions and those of ecosystem partners. They may be walled-garden events, but users who stick with one main supplier for decades don’t seem to mind, judging by the large attendance at this year’s event in Las Vegas.

At the US Realize Live event, Siemens invited speakers from established industry giants, like Boeing, to talk about the power of the digital twin. An interesting aspect of the presentation was how Boeing also creates digital twins for legacy aircraft, such as the 50-year-old F-15 fighter jet. Much smaller, but equally innovative, companies like Unlimited Tomorrow, Greenforges, Energica Inside, and Space Perspective shared their experiences in using technology in the development of everything from robotic prosthetic arms to sustainable underground farming. The European event in July will feature speakers from Pirelli, Space Perspective, Ducati Corse, Energica Motor Company’ and DRÄXLMAIER Group.

Xcelerator in Focus

After last year’s launch of Siemens Xcelerator, it was clear that Realize Live would focus on solutions around this new platform. New this year is Industrial Operations X, which takes Xcelerator down to the plant floor level, offering smart IT capabilities and software development methods that, according to the company, help make production process more flexible, autonomous and people-centric. At the event, Siemens emphasized the importance of building an open eco-system of partners, demonstrating the company’s new commitment to openness. An excellent case study is FREYR, a Norwegian battery start-up, which manufactures batteries with renewable energy from wind power and water. To scale annual production quickly and sustainability, the company is partnering with Siemens, AWS and Nvidia to create an industrial metaverse of its factories, all built on a comprehensive digital twin.

Composable Enterprise

Siemens presented its concept of the “composable enterprise”, a modular approach to digital service delivery and software development. Essentially, it refers to a plug-in-play application architecture in which each component performs a clearly defined business function. A composable enterprise architecture uses a single platform and single data backbone, together with components that have “packaged business capabilities” to support the function (like the shopping cart in an app store that manages the transaction, product and customer information). Another key element to delivering composability is the degree of extensibility that Siemens can provided across the Xcelerator portfolio using its Mendix-branded low-code/no-code tools.

This modern architecture is key to the success of a new platform, like Xcelerator, that hopes to onboard partners quickly to build an attractive ecosystem for industrial users. With this approach, Siemens is sending a clear message about how the company plans to develop the platform going forward. While most of the attention tends to be on the cloud hyperscalers and enterprise software giants, it is remarkable just how wide and deep the Siemens portfolio is, extending from product design through sourcing, manufacturing, logistics and customer service. In this crowded and competitive space, Siemens is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the area of industrial cloud platforms and services.

The Value of “In-House” Events

While the keynote speeches and case studies were top-notch, the real value for industry users at Realize Live was to be found in the wealth of practical applications demonstrated in the exhibition area by companies that are part of the growing Xcelerator ecosystem, as well as the face-to-face networking with peers at all levels. You might call this the “discovery” part of the event: finding a technology or application that you were previously unaware of and immediately identifying a useful purpose for it in your plant. Call it event serendipity.

ARC analysts attended Realize Live in June in the US, and the ARC European and Asian Teams will send analysts to the Realize Live events in Germany and Japan in July.