These slides were presented at the NAFEMS World Congress 2025, held in Salzburg, Austria from May 19–22, 2025.

Abstract

In today'™s rapidly evolving consumer goods sector, digital transformation plays a pivotal role in driving innovation and optimizing product and process development. This abstract highlight a pioneering initiative aimed at democratizing Simulation and Data Management for a global leader in the food and snack industry, leveraging a commercial SPDM software technology. As part of a broader 'œDigital First' strategy, the project centers around the development of a Digital Developer Portal (DDP), designed to streamline research and development (R&D) processes by providing seamless access to advanced digital tools via a single, easy-to-use platform. This initiative represents a shift from traditional physical prototyping to a more efficient, virtual-first approach. The DDP allows product developers to begin any new project by utilizing digital simulations to guide decisions related to formulation, processing, and packaging. This digital toolset consolidates simulation data, models, and associated workflows, empowering cross-functional teams to make data-driven decisions with greater speed and accuracy. The DDP integrates a commercial Simulation Process and Data Management (SPDM) platform and a Process Integration & Design Optimization (PIDO) software. Together, these tools create an ecosystem that allows the company to democratize its R&D processes across teams distributed worldwide. The system will enable users to: 1. Access a wide range of digital tools from a centralized portal. 2. Retrieve simultaneous outputs from multiple tools to improve decision-making. 3. Automate workflows, where outputs from one tool feed directly into another. 4. Compare various scenarios quickly through automated reports. The introduction of this system is expected to deliver significant business benefits, including: ? Simulation Lead Design, ensuring that every developer begins their project by leveraging digital tools, leading to more informed decision-making early in the product development cycle. ? Uniting global teams through a single collaborative platform, which enhances workflow management and scenario evaluation across locations. Key components of the DDP include: 1. Democratization: The platform enables a broad range of users'”from product to packaging and process experts'”to access sophisticated tools, models, and data without requiring deep technical knowledge in simulation or advanced technologies like AI/ML. 2. Workflow & Automation: The system allows for the creation, versioning, and publishing of digital tools that range from basic calculators to complex simulation solvers. These tools can be combined into automated workflows, which can be executed in a guided, manual way. 3. Data Management: An object-oriented structure ensures robust management of inputs, outputs, and associated documentation, providing traceability, version control, and the ability to generate insights through reports and visualizations. 4. Traceability & Analysis: The platform provides full traceability of projects, scenarios, data, and workflows, offering analytics capabilities for both business and IT users to compare and report on various outcomes. The SPDM Platform acts as the backbone for secure simulation data management, while PIDO Tool facilitates the automation of workflows and optimization tasks. Together, these platforms enable the client to accelerate its transition from physical to virtual prototyping, driving operational efficiencies, enhancing collaboration, and fostering innovation in product development. This case study illustrates the transformative potential of Simulation Process and Data Management (SPDM) systems in enabling global teams to adopt digital-first approaches, reducing time to market, and improving overall R&D effectiveness in the consumer goods industry.