Generally, Northrop Grumman is an A&D industry leader in digital design, manufacturing and modernization, with more than 160 programs operating in a comprehensive digital ecosystem that includes all phases of a product’s life cycle from design, manufacturing, testing and delivery. Siemens Xcelerator serves as a platform in the development of this ”digital-first approach” across Northrop Grumman’s portfolio of advanced capabilities.
Digital Tools Accelerate Innovation at Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman’s Adam Shepherd, tying in on this fact, spoke at the Realize Live event in Detroit about the critical importance of breaking down traditional technology silos, and demonstrated how digital tools can dramatically accelerate innovation.
Throughout his presentation, Shepherd emphasized Northrop Grumman’s commitment to pushing technological boundaries, particularly through their strategic partnership with Siemens, and advanced digital technologies. He noted that in this that the agreement has been extended for another three years, painting a picture of a company that sees technology not just as a tool, but as a way to solve complex challenges and create meaningful progress.
“Our approach is about more than efficiency. It’s about transforming the design process through analytical, precise, data-driven decision-making. We reduce risk, accelerate development, and enable robust collaboration across multiple layers of security and expertise. We empower our workforce to shape the science that gives our customers confidence in their systems modernization strategies,” said Shepherd, adding:
“Siemens tools and collaboration solutions are not just enablers – they are a catalyst that allows us to deliver fast, affordable, and future-focused solutions to our customers.”
Siemens Joe Bohman on How the Digital Twin is Powered by AI
Another interesting speaker at Realize Live Americas yesterday was Joe Bohman, EVP of PLM products at Siemens Digital Industries Software. In his presentation, he showed how Siemens is revolutionizing product development with its comprehensive digital twin technology, which spans multiple domains, previously disconnected processes, and leverages the power of AI to deliver real innovation.
Bohman’s session covered topics ranging from applying AI to explore massively complex design scenarios where thousands of product variations can be generated, simulated, and optimized, to breaking down data silos and fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration, enabling customers like Vuhl Automotive to increase efficiency by 30% across their entire organization.
Bohman also explained how Siemens is addressing a critical gap in existing AI technology by working to develop an industrial AI foundation specifically designed for engineering and manufacturing.
“ChatGPT speaks the language of the internet,” said Bohman. “It can do text, images, audio, video and code. But it can’t do the language of engineering and manufacturing, the language of systems, mechanical, electrical, simulation, manufacturing and BOMs. At Siemens, we can. We have a number of unique advantages and what we do is we create our own industrial foundation model. In this, we take 150 petabytes of our own product data, our 10,000 AI patents and data from hundreds of scientists and put it all together to build an industrial foundation model that speaks exactly the language needed for super-efficient engineering and manufacturing work. We believe this can change how AI can be applied to complex technical challenges, potentially revolutionizing product development and manufacturing processes.”
It’s not hard to agree that the weight of this platform feels unique.
