ASSESS 2026: Driving Value Through Engineering Simulation

The NAFEMS ASSESS Summit – now rebranded as the Simulation Leadership Summit – returned to Atlanta in March. Executives from leading simulation software vendors, end users, and academia attended to discuss current and future trends.

The business impact of simulation was a key theme across multiple presentations. NAFEMS ASSESS executive director Nick Appleyard set the table in his opening remarks, noting that simulation is central to critical decision making for safety, sustainability, cost, and innovation, and that the landscape of simulation is changing because of mergers, acquisitions, and venture capital investment. 

“But there is a significant value disconnect at the management level,” he said, noting that upper level executives don’t necessarily understand the importance of the technology. “Engineering simulation is underutilized. The potential is greater than is currently being realized, and we are only scratching the surface.”

ASSESS can help by bringing leaders together and finding ways to leverage enabling technologies like AI, cloud, digital twins, PLM and others to elevate simulation and build executive trust.

The keynote presentation by Darrel Meffert, simulation strategy manager at Caterpillar, focused on the importance of building links between business goals and simulation applications. Caterpillar launched an enterprise simulation initiative in 2013 to help get more value out of the technology. The goal was to change the culture so that teams across the company could build more trust in simulation in an effort to speed time to market and improve quality.

Over the past decade, Caterpillar has been able to improve designs, gain a better understanding of how its products are being used (and incorporate that information into design), and improve product quality, all while reducing costs. The key was engaging a communication specialist to help sell the simulation story to all stakeholders. It’s also important to identify areas where simulation can provide the most value, in the context of your overall business goals. 

Caterpillar also focused on democratizing the use of simulation, expanding the tools to non-specialists. 

Caterpillar – along with Cummins, MillerKnowl, and Piper – was among the inaugural group of new corporate partners that support ASSESS. The ASSESS Corporate Partnership is an annual, renewable commitment that helps fund the initiative, while providing corporate partners with access to the Summit, branding at the event, and other perks. You can learn more about the program here.

Mike Henneke, who leads the global engineering simulation group at John Zink (an industrial burner manufacturer), also outlined how his company links simulation to business value. By leveraging simulation to reduce reliance on very costly physical prototyping and testing, Zink is able to save money and deliver customer orders faster. Henneke said making this connection has involved educating engineers about business goals and how they are measured, as well as educating the C-suite about the value simulation has provided.

Alistair Gill, head of capability at Element Materials Technology, gave a presentation on how his company – which is primarily a testing organization – is using simulation to add value to physical test results. 

Gary Fedder of Carnegie Mellon University gave the keynote on the second day, and discussed how AI and digital twins can be used to improve manufacturing. He also described a project that developed a foundational model for alloy development. Brian O’Keefe of Articulus gave a presentation on how to explain the business value of technology in a way that executives can understand.

NAFEMS representatives provided an update on the ASSESS data-driven benchmarks project, as well as a certification project.

Simulation Market Updates

Representatives from McKinsey and Cambashi were on hand to provide an update on the performance of the CAE software market.

According to McKinsey, simulation software providers raised 3X more funding in the past two years compared to 2020/2021, and that merger and acquisition deal value in the market was 3X higher than the prior five years.

McKinsey looked at how simulation software companies are positioning themselves across the software stack, and surveyed a representative sample of 250 software providers. According to analyst Alessandro Faure Ragani, 27% of companies are active in the artificial intelligence/machine learning portion of the stack, and of those, nearly 60% are startups. This group also raised the largest share of venture funding.

While just 5% of companies in the space offer pretrained physics foundational models, AI/ML is still the primary disrupting vector. The market is also highly fragmented, with many companies offering specialized tools and larger vendors providing one-stop-shop suites. Ragani also said that democratization is moving to reality, with roughly 40% of companies marketing the concept.

Petra Gartzen of Cambashi provided a market update as well, noting that the engineering software space has maintained healthy growth over the past ten years, even during periods of significant economic disruption marked by war and a global pandemic. The software space maintained a CAGR of 9.3% from 2020 to 2025, while the manufacturing industry as a whole had a CAGR of just 6.8%.

The CAE segment of the market is now the largest, with 39% in 2025 (compared to 28% in 2010). MCAD dropped from 39% to 29% in the same period. 

The CAGR for the software space is expected to be 9.6% through 2029. The market was valued at $10.1 billion in 2025, with Siemens holding the largest share (25%) followed by Synopsys (which acquired Ansys) at 24%, Dassault at 13%, and Cadence at 5%. That means the top three vendors hold 62% of the total market, and 82% of companies in the space are valued at less than $10 million.

“New entrants are constantly coming into the market with new, interesting technology that is revolutionizing the industry,” Gartzen said. 

Structures/FEA was the biggest application segment at $3 billion, and also the fastest growing, with a CAGR of 10%.

Keith Hanna of Cambashi provided an overview of the electronics design automation (EDA) market, noting that Siemens is now the largest provider thanks to its acquisition of Altair, and that the top four companies in the space hold 70% of the market. The EDA market is also roughly twice the size of the CAE market.