NAFEMS Americas and Digital Engineering (DE) teamed up (once again) to present CAASE, the (now Virtual) Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering, on June 16-18, 2020!

CAASE20 brought together the leading visionaries, developers, and practitioners of CAE-related technologies in an open forum, unlike any other, to share experiences, discuss relevant trends, discover common themes, and explore future issues, including:
-What is the future for engineering analysis and simulation?
-Where will it lead us in the next decade?
-How can designers and engineers realize its full potential?
What are the business, technological, and human enablers that will take past successful developments to new levels in the next ten years?

Resource Abstract

This presentation will cover lessons learned over two years of seeking to increase use of simulation earlier in the design process. The presented work occurred in a large, multinational company where traditionally simulation was largely employed at the stage of final validation prior to product release. At this point most design features are set and the cost of redesign is expensive, both in terms of schedule delay as well as modifications to capital equipment, thus opportunities for optimization are passed by and late discoveries of design deficiencies are painful. To avoid these pitfalls and to better leverage the influence of simulation the effort was undertaken to engage design groups in earlier simulation. To launch the effort a series of discussions were held with users and managers, soliciting their feedback and perspectives. This brought the realization that there was great interest in democratization of simulation, and also that work processes focused on final validation were too rigid to provide meaningful value at the early stages of design where concepts are changing quickly and inputs are not fully defined. Thus new workflows were developed, providing multiple channels for simulation work to proceed, allowing for democratization where appropriate, while making experienced analysts available for more nuanced simulations. Included in these workflows is a consultation with an analyst to assist in selecting the proper channel based on the nature of the work. As the effort has progressed there has also been learning about opportunities to simplify existing analysis methods to provide results faster with an acceptably small tradeoff in accuracy. The pursuit of these exploratory analyses has also led to a more collaborative approach between design teams and simulation experts, allowing those requesting the work to become more educated consumers of simulation, and permitting analysts to better understand the needs of the requestor. Observations and trends from the usage of exploratory simulation will be covered, including examples of pitfalls, refinements in approach, how implementation varied in multiple world areas, and how different work groups varied in their adoption. Benefits of specific successes in exploratory analysis are discussed, including reduced project schedule risk and increased understanding of designs and margins. Important but less tangible gains which contribute to an overall improved usage of simulation in the organization are also covered.