​2014 Optimus World Conference illustrated ‘Engineer by Objective’ successes by exploring the design space and optimizing product designs

More than 100 decision makers and engineers from leading manufacturing companies and research institutions gathered at the 2014 Optimus World Conference in Paris, France. This milestone event offered them great opportunity to share successful optimization projects, and experience the benefits of process integration and design optimization (PIDO). Keynote speakers from Safran and Thales Alenia Space gave a helicopter view on ‘numerical continuity’ throughout the development process and the application of such collaborative digital processes in space development programs. Industry presenters showed how they apply automated ‘Engineer by Objective’ optimization strategies covering multiple engineering disciplines, to increase customer satisfaction and product profitability.

Keynotes from Safran and Thales Alenia Space

In the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport Marriott Hotel, Noesis Solutions welcomed speakers, participants and partners from all over the world.

Hans Wynendaele, Noesis Solutions CEO, opened the conference and introduced the keynote speakers: Jacques Brochet, Chief Science and Technology Officer at Safran, and Patrick Hugonnot, Head of Thermal Development at Thales Alenia Space. They gave a helicopter view on ‘numerical continuity’ throughout the development process and the application of such collaborative digital processes in space development programs. The approach incorporating design exploration and optimization results in increased development productivity and extended engineering innovation in their organizations.

‘Engineer by Objective’ delivers better products faster

The parallel presentation tracks featured diverse industry and research related design exploration cases. The topics covered multiple performance aspects of spacecraft, aircraft, rotorcraft, cars, trucks and hybrid vehicles as well as individual part optimization projects in industrial, biomedical and green energy applications.

The presented projects illustrated that this ‘Engineer by Objective’ approach is much more efficient and targeted than traditional simulation-based development efforts. Optimus is a leading PIDO solution that design engineers use to gain up-front insight into the product performance that is within reach. The automated Optimus process frees users from repetitive manual model changes and data processing, while efficiently identifying design space regions containing leading candidate designs. These product designs meet a combination of objectives set by multiple (often competing) performance targets as well as design constraints imposed by manufacturing realities and stringent regulatory and standardization requirements.

Driving product engineering and research projects

Most presenters were delegates from manufacturers in automotive, aerospace and other industries, including Toyota Motor Corporation, Volkswagen, Safran, Philips Consumer Lifestyle, Great Wall Motor Company, l’Orange and Saint-Gobain. They explained how Optimus helps resolve their multi-disciplinary engineering challenges by enabling state-of-the art PIDO practices strengthening the virtual prototyping process. Adopting this development approach better leverages virtual prototyping investments and streamlines simulation-based design processes.

The other presenters were researchers from organizations including CIRA (IT), Cranfield (UK), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), University of Michigan (US), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN), Free University of Brussels (BE) and Politecnico di Torino (IT). Their contributions showed that Optimus plays an important role in academic, industrial and governmental research projects.