Forge - Enabling Manufacturing business from Anywhere, Anytime for Anybody

KIRUBA KARAN CANDASAMY: Hello, everyone. This is Kiruba from KKMSOFT. Today I'm going to present to you something about Forge, which is running in the minds of every developer or customer or solution provider, and we are still not clear how we can utilize this further and enable different technologies to work for us. So in this presentation, a little bit about myself. I'm the Chief Technology Officer at KKMSOFT. KKMSOFT is a gold partner to Autodesk from India, and also a consulting services provider. Out of that, one of the more upcoming and trending technologies is the Autodesk Forge, which we are going to see today.

So, what did we learn from COVID? First thing we learned is we can still survive with 50% resources, right? With what would be available in office, we could do away with a lot of things that they're not really must have, and need have, those were alone available to us. And good to have stuff was all discarded, because we couldn't have them at home. And still we could survive. The reason we could survive was we could optimize our work and automate a lot of tasks. That's a lesson.

Second thing is when the COVID struck us, we were all very unprepared and not ready for such a long duration of out of office. And we were clueless how we were going to survive, but we still learned to modularize our world divided, to parametrize and attach it to different parameters around the scope of work, right?

Next important thing is we learned how to work remotely, right, although we had initial glitches. We started to understand that life in the remote and work from home is going to be the order of the day, and this meant that we have to manage it, manage our resources frugally, and also standardize on the activities and strictly follow workflows.

And then of course, last and final, we found digital is the way to go. And digital transformation took off in a big scale and cloud became the thing, and every service that we offered had to be available on the cloud and integrated with the cloud technologies. These are some of the takeaways.

Now summing up the learning, Forge plays an important role even so after these things have been in place, right. How Forge can help you and automating, modularizing, managing and integrating solutions. So what is Forge? Forge, is it software or is it a product? No, Forge is an ecosystem built by Autodesk. It is neither a product or just a developers tool.

It's a combination of products that are available on the cloud and available for access through a development platform or through APIs, and there are so much things that we can do with this Forge ecosystem. And it is not out of box solution. There are out of box solutions, like 360, that were developed using Forge, but every company has their own let's say, methodologies or their own workflows, and that is where Forge comes into to help you customize, automate, or modify your workflows.

Right, let's look at how Forge has been conventionally used, and where we apply Forge in the regular usage. For example, Forge was perceived more as a visualization tool or an integration tool for the cloud applications, and for simple design automation, or process automation. That was the original perspective of the customer towards Forge.

So keeping those in mind, the Forge can be broken down into an architecture where you have a set of desktop tools like Inventor, Revit, 3DSMax, and AutoCAD, and then you also have the cloud applications like your Fusion360, BIM360, and you have the server based applications like Vault and VaultBuild. Now these together, right, can talk to Forge through different APIs.

Now APIs are, you have BIM360 APIs. You have data management APIs. You have design automation API. You have a Model Derivative, which is nothing but getting data from the models. You have a separate API for reality capture. You have a viewer API, and you also have web books APIs. These are some of the core components of the Forge APIs. A combination of these could deliver the solution that you intend to get out of Forge, all right.

So when you combine the capabilities of the desktop solutions like Inventor AutoCAD and 3DSMax. And with the cloud solutions from Autodesk, integrated via the Forge platform, you can develop certain applications like a simple configurators, right. You can create viewers or collaboration platforms. You can use it to extract data from your card data from [INAUDIBLE] or Inventor. You can also build a simple common data environment or a repository.

You can build mobile or desktop based point cloud to model creation tools, right? You can also create a sort of a translator between applications because of the unique capability of the Forge platform. These are all conventional applications. A lot of them have been developed, some of them have been productized, but even then the Autodesk provides detailed tutorials and examples for you to start off and build these applications. These are some of the really conventional apps that you can build.

But then what Forge is capable is even beyond what we can perceive as a conventional application. So you can extend the capabilities even beyond these. So some of these extrapolated or extended applications can be achieved by integrating with enterprise systems, enterprise systems like ERP supply chain software, or CRM, or any such project scheduling or planning software. But it can, because of the web capabilities and the different APIs, you can also make this software talk to IoT platforms or mixed reality platforms, right.

What this means is you can connect to different databases, data sources, sources of other 3D 2D intent, and then combine them with the conventional applications to create a more enterprise wide, enterprise working application. So some examples, based on this technology architecture, what we already saw combining the desktop and the cloud applications of Autodesk, you can build conventional applications.

And then using the API you can also exchange data with enterprise applications like ERP, supply chain, or CRM, or get data from your IoT devices or IoT platforms, but also connect with other business analytics or office applications or project management applications. Now this combination of 3D and data, through Forge, can really help you in creating some complex applications.

For example, you can automate the entire sales automation process, starting from your customer interfacing side through engineering your cost, calculations, proposals, and your auto cycle. These could be integrated via the Forge platform. You can automate business processes or manufacturing processes where you require shop floor automation or exchange of data between different locations and offices.

You can do away with dull, boring reports or charts and graphs, and replace them with really dynamic live 3D data, and so on, right. We're going to see a couple of examples in the upcoming slides. So this is the key differentiator of the Forge API based platform against any other 3D kernels or 3D apps that come out on the web, all right.

So you get a powerful range of APIs supported by powerful desktop applications, and connected to different other engineering processes. You can build very powerful automation components. Examples, we'll talk about a couple of Autodesk as well as customer stories.

To start off with, a simple solution that we worked on for another customer is that they already have an existing complex built for exclusively their manufacturing process. And the problem they had was the data from the PLM had to be exchanged with Shopfloors and factory floors across multiple locations in their network, both within a campus or outside the campus, and sometimes also shared with adjacent locations with contractors.

So what we built was a simple viewing application which also has a built in QR code and barcode connector. So what this does is it reads your QR code from different brands and then pulls up the latest drawing from the PLM software, displays it on a regular tablet or mobile device, and this device can then be used for viewing the drawing in 2D and 3D.

And then people call the markup or do some commenting, they could measure different dimensions. And also, put then their comments that can be sent back to the PLM system. This is a very simple application but this takes away a lot of pain in the Shopfloor. For example, they had to print pages and pages of drawings in paper. They also had to make sure they were retrieving the latest and the current revisions and drawings, right.

And also, the ones printed on a smaller sheet of paper, maybe A4 sized paper, some details could not be read or they couldn't send my comments back to the design team. All these issues are now being ironed out and then they're using the solution as a more better communication tool through the PLM system. This is one simple application you can think of, right?

Next application is going to be a sort of a sales automation this solution was done for an elevator manufacturer. This is primarily a tool that is meant for the sales team who's on the field. So when the sales guy goes to, whether it is a customer or a contractor who's building the facility, right, that is where a decision has to be taken on the high street, or the software where the elevator goes up and down.

So while designing this he has to capture a lot of information from the field, quickly configure it, and then arrive at different dimensions and sizes which can be replaced by the building contractor for further action on the building, right. So this used to take maybe a couple of days to come back with different options and sizes and drawings. But today this application is built into web portal, so the designer simply, the salesman, goes thorough the field, enters the values, quickly gets options, shows up to the Client, brings us the final model then and there. And then creates a PDF of the output and the readability format, hands it over to the contractor and comes back.

So how this works is you have a local web server and the Autodesk Forge web server. The local server is used for storing the database, the business logic. And then it also connects to the pricing and inventory database for the salesman to understand different cost implication and the inventory availability.

So what this means is that the local server can be used as a configurator, and then the data goes back to the Forge for creating the 3D models, extracting the 2D drawings from that. And then the user downloads the drawing into her system through the website and hands it over to the customer. This is one very good example using a couple of Forge APIs and the I-logic based Inventor application. There's an example of that, right.

Another example in the engineering procurement construction and manufacturing customer who makes a Plant and process equipment and machinery, who is also a contractor and a manufacturer of plant equipment. In his case, he had the requirement to integrate all the designs that are coming from different design teams on a single platform.

And also to collect data from their ERP to each of these elements so that they can view the timelines, the different schedules, they can also see the completion status. And all those [INAUDIBLE] boring graphical pie charts and bar graphs, now they can see it in color on their 3D models where the users can vary. And then filter, slice and dice the data in 3D to get more information. Now this is built around an existing document management system that this company already has. So this is a very large company. So they have close to 3,000 licenses of Autodesk, and they also have more than 2,000 cloud license of Autodesk.

But they have tens of thousands of more people in the field who are not part of the design ecosystem. So the solution was built in such a way that their existing document management system will integrate with our forge platform. It will pull and push data between the existing document management system. It will also talk to existing Bim 360 and Fusion 360 platforms for data which is on the cloud, and render those in a 3D environment embedded into the SharePoint and Teams environment of the customer.

So this is a combination of the homegrown document system built around Sharepoint and Microsoft technologies, talking to the Autodesk cloud solutions through the Forge APIs. And this saves them a lot of confusion, because the data was lying in multiple locations and multiple cloud applications. They're now brought into a single source of truth, a common data environment, where they can see both 3D, 2D data combined with ERP data.

This solution is very powerful for large organizations [? detoxing, ?] and becomes even more valuable during a lockdown or a pandemic, right, so the data gets accessible from anywhere in the world. That's an example there.

One more interesting example is how to integrate, let's say, asset management or an IoT platform into 3D. The more common applications are graphical, at the most, at the 3D level, or connected to 2D systems, like maps and so on. But what forge gives you is an extension of that information into the 3D real, and you can connect different IoT data as well as the asset management data, combine them and push it to 3D information that is available with the design team.

This combination is very important for two aspects. Number one, the asset management is a little more clearer to the people who are maintaining this equipment. And also, serves as a good planning platform for the people who are accessing this data. So this solution for IoT and asset management was split into two parts.

So the latest 3D was derived from the Autodesk world platform, using through the Autodesk four APIs and then pushed into the asset management solution. And the asset management solution also combines the IoT data that comes from the IoT servers, which, again, pass through the forge and get combined with the 3D onto the asset portal.

So this data not only gives a real time feel of the equipment in 3D on the equipment, but also provides information about the completed already written for the 3D model of the equipment that they are maintaining. This is an example.

An extension of that solution was that they wanted to use this IoT data and the asset data to be available on a virtual reality or mixed reality platform for people who joined their organization fresh. So when they joined fresh, it was taking a lot of time to train them or wait for important people to come down to train or go on site and get trained.

They wanted to avoid this by including this in the mixed reality platform. So here again, what we did was we used the same data which came from Vault, but this time we also use the previous max design automation platform APIs that is there in Forge, combine it with the inventor design automation API. And we used this process to create rendered models that can be directly utilized inside the mixed reality, virtual reality development platforms, and streamed across 2D assets software for training to the people on the headsets or mobiles or VR equipment.

This is an interesting case study. I think I have a video to show you about how this works. So we do, we are seeing now is the viewpoint of the design engineer, the maintenance engineer, I'm sorry. So the maintenance engineer here sees the equipment floating in front of him through his HoloLens mixed reality headset. So he sees on the right side the IoT data. And he selects the plant, he selects the equipment.

And then for the training purpose, he looks up and it is also voice activated and gesture activated. He goes around the equipment. He enables certain processes, like replacing an impeller or replacing the battery. And the whole equipment dismantles itself and shows how he has to go about maintaining this equipment. And it's a combination of Forge API for inventor and for the appeals for 3ds Max that are used for this application.

It was a very classic example of how you can extend the capability of Forge. So let me go further. Right. Another common thing that is coming up in the industry is combining data from your 3D and 2D into reports, like PowerBi from Microsoft is one such popular BI tool or a data analytics tools are there.

So what Forge can do is take you beyond just simple graphical charts, and combine the power of Forge 3D integration to data to give you even more powerful and dynamic data analytics output.

An example of that is that we developed an interface where you can pull data from BIM 360 or Forge or any of these other platforms or from the desktop, combine it with ERP data, combine it with other database or with project run software output, and you can slice and dice and query the model, look for clashes, look for a timeline on the cloud on any device interpolating between the data across these multiple platforms at the same time.

I have a video on this. A quick example. So in this example, the user is getting the data from his Bim 360 account. It could be from the Fusion 360 account also. Then selects data for the simulation of timeline, an Excel sheet. He also connects to a database, which is an extract from the ERP. A combination of ERP data with the timeline on the 3D produces sort of a color chart which is not only graphical but also intuitive.

You can query the model, filter, slice and dice the data in 3D, and see the relevant information. And then you can also export the output as a 3D data that can be consumed by others. But more important is the data is live in sync with the different enterprise applications that the user might have. This is one such example.

So then another very interesting example. This example is from Autodesk. Its a digital twin of your equipment or machinery or any equipment that you have that can have multiple interfaces to different business systems. So I'm going to show this site for you.

So this is the site. So you can see at the center, you have the 3D model embedded in the screen. But on the right hand side, you can see that you are getting a stream of data. This data is nothing but the data that's coming from the IoT platform, right?

And once you also want to connect it to an asset solution, you can see the current status of the equipment, the maintenance records. If you connect it to an ERP, you can also see what was the price of the equipment, what is the consumable cost, and so on. Who the supplier is, and when it was packaged, and so on. So it combines 3D with multiple databases.

You can also animate this, if required. Or you can see the heat map of all the different issues. What's shown in red color is the more frequent issues that are being raised and the green ones are less problematic parts. You can select individual components and then you can also see individual data related to the pricing or problems and so on.

So this is a classic example of combining multiple data to your equipment to have real time information displayed as required for your reporting purposes. OK, another example is this very simple example here. You have a seating of a automotive company.

You can query the model based on components, fasteners, for example, or linear equipment, and so on. Or you can query based on the material, in this case, stainless steel then other alloys or abs plastic, and so on. This is also a good example of more robust data informatics and analytics using the 3D power of Forge.

So I think you got the idea by now. And how do you leverage the power of Forge within your organization? How do you move forward with Forge? So first thing is Forge requires some level of development knowledge. Anybody with some knowledge of Node.js or [INAUDIBLE] or any of the web service based data accessing an integration to web solutions should be able to catch on to Forge development very quickly.

The Forge website is a huge repository of a lot of examples, samples, tutorials, and you have information that is bountiful, lot of support groups and forums are there. In addition, to go about, may have to subscribe. There is a trial period subscription, and then a whole year subscription is approximately $60, $70, that's it, where you get 100 cloud credits.

And then you can extend on a pay as you go model, can add as many cloud credits required based on the application that you're using. And hosted on your own private cloud or it could be on AWS or any other cloud platform that supports the technology listed in the Forge website.

Besides that, there are service providers like us like us, like KKMSOFT, who have expertise or supporting you, helping you, or developing solutions around Forge. You can also get to people like us who are certified service providers.

Follow me on [INAUDIBLE] or LinkedIn at [INAUDIBLE] or email us on solutions@kkmsoft if you need more information. All right, with that I come to the end of my presentation. Thanks for meeting virtually on the platform.

Thank you very much.