Engineering Simulation has grown into significant importance in the engineering design process over the last four decades with technology drivers enabling its broader and improved application. This growth in importance has been accompanied by a growth in awareness of the benefits and key business drivers, which then also brings a new set of opportunities and challenges related to increased demand.
The Engineering Simulation market is struggling to meet this surge in demand, and a Simulation Revolution is needed to overcome the shortage of expertise, which prevents broader application. Cambashi has been providing insights into the 2D & 3D CAE market with its CAE Observatory since 2015. The 2020 release of the CAE Observatory illustrates that the Simulation Revolution has begun with increasing annual market growth rates forecast compared to previous years––excluding 2020, of course. The emergence of Generative Design and Digital Twins is combined with other business drivers to increase Engineering Simulation demand.
Evolution Through Technology Drivers
From the mid-1970s until recently, simulation has been determined by the technology’s state enabling different uses. The advancement of technology-enabled more applications and more efficient application of Engineering Simulation while delivering higher value. The application and role of Engineering Simulation within organizations have typically followed a Technology Drivers – Failure Analysis / Design Validation / Design Decision Support / Design Drivers / Systems Engineering / Generative Design.
The nature of the advancements of technology and the Technology Drivers associated with Engineering Simulation made it clear that long term evolutionary growth was sustainable.
Revolution Through Business Drivers
The worldwide downturn in 2009 had a much broader impact on business in general and a complete rethink of what it took to build and maintain competitiveness. The changing role of Engineering Simulation since 2009 is really about Business Drivers for improved competitiveness:
- Increase Innovation
- Increase Performance
- Improve Quality/Risk Management
- Reduce Time
- Reduce Cost
Organizations worldwide began to understand that a better understanding of product and process behavior and the associated risk was crucial for making a positive impact on these Business Drivers. The realization is also quickly following that Engineering Simulation is the only viable method to achieve this improved understanding and is a major key to all 5 Business Drivers. However, Engineering Simulation software is still typically used only by expert analysts leveraging more sophisticated tools.
There is a need to significantly expand usage to a broader audience to impact Business Drivers. The Business Drivers will force a “Simulation Revolution” to overcome the expertise-based limitation, and Engineering Simulation will be forced to find a way to support its newly found role as a key enabler to increased competitiveness.
The Simulation Revolution is Real And Coming to a Town Near You
The concept of an inevitable Simulation Revolution was first introduced by the ASSESS Initiative, which was formed in 2016 to facilitate a revolution of enablement that will vastly increase the availability and utility of Engineering Simulation, leading to significantly increased usage and business benefits across the full spectrum of industries, applications, and users.
Cambashi’s latest CAE Market Observatory data shows that the CAE market has been growing in double-digit figures and will continue on that path – except for 2020 – illustrating that the efforts of the ASSESS Initiative and other organizations are beginning to make an impact on overcoming the expertise based limitations for Engineering Simulation.
While 2020 will present lower growth rates, and Cambashi expects negative growth from, e.g., the automotive industry, growth overall is still expected to be positive. In the future, the trends that were driving the adoption of simulation have not gone away. The need to develop new, greener versions of any product will accelerate, especially in industries generating vapor trails. And COVID-19 is also opening up new opportunities for simulation in any industry where people spend significant amounts of time nearby. The need to provide a safe working environment to get industries back to some normal situation could also result in new linkages between CAE and BIM vendors and CAE and IIoT/Connected Application technology providers.
The Emergence of Generative Design
Generative Design has the potential to initiate a significant paradigm shift in the design processes used today by enabling designs to be computer-generated based on a clear specification of rules, requirements, and constraints. This overturns the current design practice, where designs must first be created so they can be evaluated against their performance requirements. Generative Design has the potential to be a key enabler of Democratization of Engineering Simulation by enabling the user to define a design scenario and allow a Generative Design tool to explore the design space for feasible design options.
Driving Generative Design upfront to the “early stages” of the development process will change the nature of the work done, which will cascade to change the work done later in the process. Generative Design tools are expanding their support of different manufacturing processes, and some Generative Design tools support “Design for Manufacturability” and manufacturing cost estimation.
The Emergence of Engineering Simulation Digital Twins
Digital Twins and specifically Engineering Simulation Digital Twins are essential to enable digital transformation across product development, manufacturing, and in-service operations. To address the objectives of digital transformation, most major PLM and Engineering Simulation vendors are actively pursuing some form of Digital Twin strategy that includes a physics-based Engineering Simulation Digital Twins to enable capturing knowledge and developing an understanding of the current and predicted state and performance of its Physical Twin.
The exploitation of Engineering Simulation Digital Twins is a potentially positive disruptive approach for certain types of physical assets where: (a) servicing is hard or extremely expensive, (b) ongoing maintenance is critical, (c) physical assets have a long life, or (d) physical asset operations are considered mission-critical and/or safety-critical. The use of Engineering Simulation Digital Twins is also expected to open up the potential for multiple new business models for products-as-a-service such as aircraft engine contracts that provide “power by the hour” to the airlines, including 24x7x365 maintenance.
The Simulation Revolution
The changing role of Engineering Simulation is really about business drivers for improved competitiveness. Engineering Simulation provides a better understanding of product and process behavior, variability, and risk to support increased competitiveness.
- Increase Innovation
- Increase Performance
- Improve Quality/Risk Management
- Reduce Time
- Reduce Cost
The Simulation Revolution to support this changing role has already begun and is gaining traction quickly. However, this revolution is still in its early stages, with substantial, sustained growth of the Engineering Simulation market likely for the foreseeable future.
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