If you are in the business of making engineering simulation or a lead practitioner, here are several reasons you need to attend ASSESS (this year October 28 to 30, near Atlanta, GA), one of only two conferences dedicated to engineering simulation that features more than one brand of software. The other, of course, is the NAFEMS conference.
If you are shopping for new simulation software, looking to upgrade, hear of trends in simulation (democratization, simulation ahead of design), learn from industry pundits or grill software vendors, ASSESS and NAFEMS will both have collected movers and shakers of the simulation community for you. It will be like hitting the shopping mall, instead of going to one store at a time, the equivalent of going to every vendor’s user meeting—which not all vendors have.
ASSESS (accent on the 2nd syllable, please) is patterned after COFES. Like COFES, it places an emphasis on industry thought leaders to inspire dialog. But whereas COFES’ reach is all of engineering science, ASSESS focuses on simulation, FEA and CFD, in particular. The format is somewhat similar with breakout sessions. It is also an invitation-only event, limited to 115 attendees. But if you tell them "engineering.com sent you," organizer Joe Walsh may look favorably at your request.
If you are in the software industry, it's a good place to see what your competition is up to, and discover where you might be behind—before it is too late.
From the ASSESS website, it looks as if they’ve also assembled top-notch keynote speakers and topics.
Mark Meili, R&D Director, Modeling & Simulation from Procter & Gamble Company will be expounding on “Diffusion of Innovation” applied to Modeling & Simulation—what can we learn from social science research. Mark has held a variety of technical and management positions in both R&D and Product Supply Engineering. His current role spans both organizations and technical work processes from research to commercialization to supply chain operation. Mark has been both a practitioner and champion of first principles understanding to reduce risk and enable robust technical decision making throughout his 32-year professional career. Mark received Bachelor of Science degrees from Kansas State University, one in Mechanical Engineering and one in Grain Science.
- Dimitri Mavris, Director of Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory & Boeing Chaired Professor, at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will discuss how they created a digital twin of the GA Tech Campus.In the last 25 years, Dimitri and the Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ADSL) at GA Tech have created multi-disciplinary physics-based modeling and simulation tools. ASDL has streamlined the process of integrating parametric simulation toolsets to gain huge runtime improvements that facilitate large scale design space exploration and optimization. They have applied these concepts to the ADSL facility, itself.
In addition to keynote speakers, ASSESS includes informative sessions.
- Bob Deragisch from Parker Aerospace, on CAD vs CAE – which comes first?
- Katherine Lewis of Lawrence Livermore National labs, on how cognitive simulation is applied there.
- Gene Allen from Decision Incite, about Building Experts with Simulation
- Hubertus Tummescheit from Modelon with an Update from the Modelica Association
- Scott Leemans from X-EES, about Making Simulations Believable, and Where It All Started
- Andreas Vlahinos from AES presents From Topology Optimization to Generative Design
- Scott Shaw, from MBDA presents Liberating Computational Simulation: putting CFD on the desktop of every aerodynamicist at MBDA
- Ted Blacker from Sandia, on Generative Design: A New Era in Product Development
- Troy Peterson of INCOSE, about Transforming Engineering Systems
- Matt Breidenthal of HOK will present the Mercedes Benz Stadium HOLO Screen support design
You can pretend you were in France. Pictures from the ASSESS venue, the Chateau Elan, will be quite convincing. You needn’t tell anyone it was just a Lyft ride from Atlanta, Georgia.
For more information, go to the ASSESS Initiative website. You can ask for an invitation up until October 24, 2018.