Dr. Keith Meintjes is featured in a new article on CAE. The article includes both quotes and an illustration; link at bottom of excerpt:
Computer-aided engineering (CAE), software continues to suffer from being the outsider at the party, despite predictions of its popularity.
It’s been well documented how simulation software can both innovate designs and increase product quality, while also reducing costs, risk and development time. However, simulation is still not seeing the boom in usership CAE vendors crave. What gives?
The pickle is that traditional CAE software is notoriously hard to use and the pool of simulation experts needed to run the software isn’t meeting the demand.
Are the solution democratized simulation tools like engineering apps, templates, and fit for purpose CAE tools? Maybe, but the creation of these tools are themselves dependent on CAE experts.
Even giving users access to simplified user interfaces (UI) in a Design Platform or Simulation in-CAE atmosphere requires a Simulation expert eventually look things over.
The “simulation revolution” that software vendors predicted never occurred. Despite the apparent need to implement simulation, without the CAE experts leading the charge, the revolution has fallen flat, according to Joe Walsh, CEO of intrinSIM, an industry consultancy.
“The demand for engineering simulation software tools is exploding to support the demand for increased competitiveness and to deal with the rapidly growing complexity of products, processes, and systems,” said Walsh. “At the same time, we are struggling to keep up with our current demand for experts who are able to use these tools effectively.”
The solution, and cornerstone of the current CAE expansion movement is the democratization of simulation technology. By making simulation technology easier to use, or by giving experts tools to create simulation tools for their peers, vendors can in theory increase the usership.
Again, these democratization tools, be it engineering application, template or fit-for-purpose CAE tool, still need Simulation experts to create them. These CAE experts might be a contractor, employed at the organization that will use the tool, or employed by the vendor. However, at the end the end of the day, these democratized CAE tools only become magnifiers of the expert’s presence. They pass the expert’s knowledge to others, but the limiting factor is still the number of experts.
These business drivers led Walsh and partner Brad Holtz, CEO of Cyon Research, to create the Analysis, Simulation, and Systems Engineering Software Strategies (ASSESS) Initiative. ASSESS is a think tank of key players in the CAE world, including vendors, users, academics and industry analysts. Its aim is to expand CAE technology use by the next generation.
“Working in collaboration with other industry organizations such as NAFEMS, INCOSE and CIMdata, ASSESS seeks to integrate the processes and technologies required to advance the implementation of systems modeling and simulation across the entire product life cycle," said Dr. Keith Meintjes, practice manager Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata.
“Bringing together users, thought leaders and vendors to address disruptive change in order to democratize CAE to achieve 10X or even 100X usage of engineering simulation tools is something that the CAE industry has been crying out for in the last 20 years,” said Dr. Keith Hanna, Mechanical Analysis Division director at Mentor Graphics.
To read the rest of this feature, please click here: http://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/15220/Simulation-Boom-Stalls-CAE-Experts-Needed-to-Make-Engineering-Apps.aspx
For more on Generative Design, see Dr, Keith Meintjes’ recent blog posting at http://www.cimdata.com/en/resources/cimdata-blog/item/8402-generative-design-what-s-that
