Future General Electric Co. customers will benefit from innovative and reliable products with reduced risk and unplanned downtime as never before thanks to a new agreement between the company and ANSYS.

The new agreement expands GE’s use of ANSYS engineering simulation solutions to accommodate its November 2015 acquisition of Alstom’s Power and Grid businesses. It enables GE to realize synergistic savings through tool consolidation, while still growing the number of ANSYS solutions used in product development and analysis, product quality, and testing. This use of Simulation Driven Product Development has already reduced cycle times by 33 percent, an even further reduction is expected as a result of this investment.

The deal also expands beyond product development into operations, a key element to GE’s Predix Industrial Internet platform. Predix is the world’s only industrial cloud offering designed specifically for industrial data and analytics across such industries as aviation, transportation, oil and gas, and healthcare. Organizations use this platform to create innovative Industrial Internet applications that turn real-time operational data into insights for better and faster decision making while maximizing machine efficiency.

ANSYS’ industry-leading portfolio of engineering simulation software will collaborate with GE Power Engineering to pilot “simulation as a service,” enabling companies to analyze the performance of smart machines in real-world operating conditions, then make confident predictions about future performance. Physics-based simulation with big data analytics and industrial devices augmented with embedded intelligence can reduce risk, avoid unplanned downtime and speed up new product development.

“By collaborating with ANSYS, we’re better able to deliver the world the most advanced products to power the world and support the GE Digital Thread strategy,” said John Lammas, vice president, gas power systems technology and chief technology officer of GE Power.

“The industry is in the midst of a revolution in manufacturing and product innovation,” said Walid Abu-Hadba, chief product officer at ANSYS. “With our new agreement in hand, GE and ANSYS will help to usher in this new age of Internet of Things and Industry 4.0, enabling organizations to innovate like never before while delivering on their promise to deliver the most robust and reliable products ever imagined.”

ANSYS announced today that it joined GE‘s Digital Predix early adopter program. This move combines the power of the leading engineering simulation platform with the first and only industrial cloud offering for industrial data and analytics, GE’s Predix cloud platform. As part of the Predix early adopter program, the two companies will demonstrate a pilot integration of ANSYS flagship simulation platform with GE’s Predix industrial internet platform today at GE’s Minds + Machines event in San Francisco.

GE’s Predix industrial internet platform is the world’s only industrial cloud offering designed specifically for industrial data and analytics across such industries as aviation, transportation, oil and gas, and healthcare. Organizations use this platform to create innovative Industrial Internet applications that turn real-time operational data into insight for better and faster decision making while maximizing machine efficiency.

Engineering simulation software has traditionally been used in the design phase, and almost every innovative product in the market today has benefited from it. With the Internet of Things, simulation is becoming even more essential as advanced products now combine mechanical, fluid, electronics and embedded software. A complete systems level model is now necessary to benchmark operational field data analytics with simulated system performance. This collaboration with industry visionary GE will demonstrate the benefits of extending the engineering simulation to the full product lifecycle from initial design to operation and maintenance and back again to design of the next-generation machines.

Connecting ANSYS’s industry-leading portfolio of engineering simulation software to the data and analytics platform of GE’s Predix industrial internet platform will help companies analyze the performance of smart machines in real-world operating conditions – and make confident predictions that were previously mere speculation. Physics-based simulation with big data analytics and industrial devices augmented with embedded intelligence can reduce risk, avoid unplanned downtime and speed up new product development.

The resulting efficiency and productivity gains will have a dramatic effect on organizations’ bottom lines as well as on the global economy in general. GE estimates that Industrial Internet technologies will help drive hundreds of billions of dollars of savings alone over 15 years.

By combining machine connectivity with a data lifecycle management platform powered by engineering simulation, ANSYS and GE will enable organizations to optimally design their products for the Industrial Internet, then take the data being relayed on their performance and use it in the development of the next generation of those products. The pilot collaboration between ANSYS and GE is aimed at demonstrating this vision for the Industrial Internet of Things.

“With Predix, GE is helping to drive digital innovation across the industrial world—but the success of the Industrial Internet depends on a collaborative ecosystem,” said Harel Kodesh, vice president, Predix and chief technology officer, GE Digital. “With ANSYS, we look forward to giving our customers the tools they need to adopt digital technologies and software to drive better outcomes for their businesses.”

“GE has been a longtime, strategic ANSYS customer, and we’re excited to take our relationship to the next level by helping its customers around the world innovate faster,” said Walid Abu-Hadba, ANSYS chief product officer. “By combining the power of ANSYS solutions with Predix, we will be able to empower our customers to push the boundaries of innovation and productivity – impacting top- and bottom-line business results.”