Advancing the Simulation Revolution

A 16th-century style French chateau surrounded by a 3,500-acre winery and resort isn’t your typical venue for an engineering conference. But the ASSESS Congress is not your typical industry conference. If your idea of an engineering conference is hours of PowerPoint presentations, followed by hit-or-miss hotel chicken, instead think focused discussion, debate and active collaboration among a small group of thought leaders—and the resort atmosphere doesn’t hurt.

The ASSESS 2019 Congress will be held Oct. 27-29, 2019 at the Chateau Elan Winery & Resort in Braselton, GA. The theme of the fourth annual Congress is “Advancing the Simulation Revolution.” What does that mean? Well, as you may know, simulation promises to be one of the solutions to a big problem facing the engineering community today: how to design and develop higher quality, more innovative products in less time and at a reasonable cost. As you may also know, that promise remains largely unfulfilled, partially because not enough engineers are using simulation software. In a nutshell, the ASSESS Initiative wants to change that, and the ASSESS Congress is a means to that end. 

“The ASSESS Congress brings together key leadership participants including experts, industry analysts, software providers, researchers, simulation users and others in the community of model-based analysis, simulation and systems engineering,” says Joe Walsh, CEO and co-founder of ASSESS Initiative LLC. “The goal is to review the current issues and next steps of the ASSESS Initiative, and to guide and influence the ASSESS Initiative’s efforts related to software development and deployment strategies.”

Only 110 participants can attend the ASSESS 2019 Congress, and only 74 remain as I write this, which is why I’m telling you about an October conference in May. Get in early to join the other commercial end users, software vendors and representatives from academia and the government to further the cause. Walsh says 75% of attendees have titles at the director level or higher, so these are people who can make change happen. You’ll also hear keynotes from Walt Witkowski, senior manager of the Computational Simulation Group at Sandia National Laboratories Albuquerque, and Ralf Hartmann, vice president and technical advisor, “Digital Design, Manufacturing and Service” (DDMS) within the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) at Airbus Defence & Space.

The number of participants is kept low because some of the main attractions of the ASSESS Congress are the discussion sessions where attendees break into small groups. Too many people talking at the same time is not conducive to collaboration, and neither are suits and ties. A casual dress code and time for informal networking are also hallmarks of the Congress.

The key themes of the ASSESS Initiative that will guide the ASSESS 2019 Congress are:

• alignment of commercial, research and government efforts;
• business challenges; 
• engineering simulation confidence and governance;
• democratization of engineering simulation;
• generative design;
• integration of systems and detailed subsystem simulations; and
• engineering simulation digital twins.

The ASSESS Initiative makes copies of the papers, survey results and other resources publicly available, but only ASSESS Congress attendees and ASSESS Initiative members have access to strategic insights and presentations from the Congress. Membership is available to anyone who is unable to attend the Congress but would like to participate in the Initiative.

“There are a lot of bright people involved in simulation, but they’re not always rowing in the same direction,” says Walsh. “ASSESS is not pretending to have all the answers. We’re bringing everyone together to move the conversation forward.”

If you’re one of those bright people, or want to benefit from their expertise, check out the ASSESS 2019 Congress October 27-29 this year. 

Thanks for reading DE.

—The Editors

More ASSESS Initiative Coverage