ASSESS Summit 2025: A New Chapter for Simulation Initiative

The NAFEMS ASSESS Summit, held in Atlanta in March, brought together leading simulation end users and vendors to discuss the future of the industry, new technology innovations, and marked a turning point in the leadership of the organization.

At the Summit, attendees got to meet new ASSESS Executive Director Nick Appleyard, and bid farewell to ASSESS Initiative founder and leader Joe Walsh, who has been overseeing the effort since 2015. The group was established as an independent think tank to help shape the future of engineering simulation and expand its use across industries and roles.

Appleyard (who is also a consultant at CIMData and previously worked at Siemens) has been tasked with leading “ASSESS 2.0.” That work will include refining the group’s efforts in simulation expansion.

New ASSESS Executive Director Nick Appleyard.

Walsh opened the event with an overview of recent ASSESS/NAFEMS accomplishments, including the launch of the UMC4ES s standard for simulation model characteristics; the NAFEMS Simulation Maturity Assessment Service; and the NAFEMS Aiolas artificial intelligence (AI) search tool. ASSESS is planning multiple executive reviews in 2025, along with one paper on certification.

Walsh also provided an overview of the state of simulation democratization, noting that “The role of simulation has evolved from being a support act to a leadership role in business strategy,” he said. “The broader use of simulation is required by most companies to enable digital transformation."

He also noted that large-scale simulation democratization is “extremely rare,” and that getting there requires a number of shifts in expertise, culture, organizational structures, and more.

Realizing the benefits of simulation also requires organizations to better understand what simulation can do, including its limitations and applicability. “Every simulation supports a decision that has been made, or that will be made,” Walsh said. “If it doesn’t, you shouldn’t be running the simulation.”

As simulation expands throughout an organization, engineers also have to make sure that all stakeholders in the process, especially non-experts, understand the limits of simulation as well. “Whenwe have people doing simulations who don’t have the same level of physics expertise who don’t have the understanding of nonlinear analysis – we need to make sure they understand variability and uncertainty. Otherwise, they will take every answer as gospel. They need to know that simulation gives you a range of answers.”

Carmen Torres-Sanchez of the University of Loughborough led the opening keynote presentation at the NAFEMS ASSESS Summit 2025.

Appleyard and other attendees paid tribute to Walsh as they discussed the future of the organization (NAFEMS CEO Tim Morris joined in via Zoom).

“I see this as a think tank where bold thinkers and visionaries can share ideas and learn from each other,” Appleyard said. “We want to help lead the industry in using simulation to affect change.”

Appleyard said that he hopes to enable ASSESS to leverage NAFEMS resources more broadly, continue the annual Summit, and establish a broader focus on the business impacts of simulation. He also hopes to launch more projects and workshops.

A Fragmented and Growing Market

The ASSESS Summit also featured presentations from leading end users, academics and software vendors. Carmen Torres-Sanchez of the University of Loughborough led a keynote presentation on her team’s work in moving from physics-based simulation to data-driven approaches around bioinstructive alloys. She also discussed the NAFEMS WISE subcommittee, which was launched to foster gender diversity to simulation engineering.

Attendees also got a look at the latest computer aided engineering (CAE) market trends from Petra Gartzen, senior consultant at Cambashi. According to the data, mechanical CAE (MCAE) is the largest segment of the manufacturing design software market at 37%, followed by MCAD (27%), PLM (19%) and CAM (11%). It is also the fastest growing segment, with a CAGR of 9.5% over the past 17 years with no signs of slowing down. Revenue is expected to double over the next seven years.

“Simulaton-led design is entering the manufacturing industry, and that will continue to give CAE software another boost,” Gartzen said.

Image courtesy of Cambashi.

There has been significant merger and acquisition activity in the space, with electronics design and mechanical CAE companies joining forces. Ansys (which is merging with Synopsys) leads the market with 24% share, followed by Siemens (17%), Dassault (13%), Altair (which is being acquired by Siemens, at 7%), and Hexagon (4%). But a whopping 34% of the market falls into the “other” category. Gartzen said that 82% of vendors in the space have revenues of less than $10 million.

As Gartzen pointed out, the simulation market has a “long tail” of small companies, and more are emerging every year. “Just in doing this research, we uncovered another 40 companies we were not previously aware of,” she said.

ASSESS Initiative founderJoe Walsh.

Amandine Battentier of Schlumberger discussed the challenges and benefits the company encountered while rolling out a simulation data and process management (SPDM) initiative. Michale Balchanos, Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL), discussed simulating potential lunar settlements, while Alfred Svobodnik from MVoid Group evaluated the business benefits of early-stage digital twins in the automotive industry.

McKinsey Consulting presented findings based on a series of interviews with simulation users, vendors, and academics around the future direction of simulation. There was broad agreement that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) would play a larger role in expanding access to simulation tools and data.

There were additional sessions led by representatives from Honda, Queen’s University Belfast, and a Day 2 keynote from Jack Castro of Boeing.

You can learn more about the ASSESS Summit here.