Vicenza, 6^th – 7^th November 2017

1200 worldwide participants affirm that simulation is the soul of industry 4.0 as the International CAE Confrence reached its 33rd edition, on the 6th-7th November in Vicenza, this year’s hub for technology and virtual simulation.

Industry 4.0, the forth industrial revolution, is inevitable and will transform the innovation, design and production processes in every field. This pressing topic has characterized the International CAE Conference, the major event in the field of Simulation Based Engineering and Sciences. The 2 day event held at the Vicenza Convention Centre, hosted renowned experts, stakeholders of academia, industry and the research world from Europe, the United States, in addition to Japan, Korea, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and Brazil.

Stefano Odorizzi, Scientific Director of the International Conference, Researcher & Professor of Padova University and CEO & co-founder of EnginSoft, opened the conference to a captured audience for the both the plenary session and the Smart Manufacturing roundtable.

The outstanding plenary session was delivered by Professor Jinhwan Choi, accredited in the area of mechanical engineering and systems dynamics; Emilio Juarez, 3D Printing Director EMEA at HP; Tom Kindermands, ANSYS Vice-President; Eric Landel, Head of Simulation techniques at Renault; Christopher Lasseur, Head of the MELiSSA Project at the European Space Agency and many more.

Each Speaker highlighted the vital role of simulation in relation to Industry 4.0; Technology, which will support and simplify the production systems of the future; System Digitalization, which allows for real-time models to simulation the system behavior from an elementary component in a plant to a complete production time; and Techniques and Simulation for Big Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence that will enable the extraction of useful information from the analysis of complex phenomena to increase reliability.

Such pervasive simulations use data in real time to replicate the physical world in a virtual model (digital twin), including machines, products and people: each physical object has its virtual twin and the data collected from the physical object can be compared with the virtual twin in order to identify the performance problems and to predict the solution and the optimizations of the real model.

The round table, chaired by Giovanni De Luca, director of Rai Veneto, was introduced by Tullio A. M. Tolio, director of Itia CNR Institute and president of CTS Cluster Fabbrica Intelligente, and participated by several representatives of Italian politics, academia and industry: Stefano Miotto, director of Confindustria Veneto, Antonio Bonaldo, Director of Research Districts and Networks of Veneto Region, Franco Deregibus, responsible for the Digital Innovation Hub Piemonte Region and Fulvio d’Alvia, director of RetImpresa.

Their discussions focused the attention on the role of SMEs, which constitutes 95% of the Italian industry, whom will soon (if not already) be involved with the improvement and evolution of the production processes on the road towards smart manufacturing. In order to encourage the new enterprise culture, the National Plan for Industry 4.0, apart from subsidies for investments, includes the creation of the new opportunities provided by the Digital Innovation Hubs and by the Competence Centres 4.0. The round table offered a clear overview of the European, national and regional strategies towards digitalization, underlining the importance of creating networks, together with training and innovation, to support companies and Universities developing new competences and evolving to meet complex requests and expectations.

The industrial sessions, rich in contributions from over 100 industry experts, widely covered the variety of applications across numerous sectors: aerospace and defence, transportation, biomechanics, civil engineering, energy, oil&gas, and many more. The participants had were enlightened with how the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement large span arch roof was built by Cimolai, gained insights into how simulation supported the optimization of race engines at Ducati Corse, how todays technology was used to simulate a high performance running shoe, learn how failure scenarios of oil pipelines can be analysed and the techniques adopted to analyse electric car innovations.

The exhibition area gathered more than 60 exhibitors at the forefront innovation presenting projects, products and results concerning virtual simulation. The International CAE Conference showed the most advanced technologies for 3D printing, as well as sophisticated and brand-new electronic systems for the emerging drones industry and furthermore the Desert Lyon, a robot developed to operate under extreme working conditions such as the clearing of land mines.

The Poster Award contest returned this year with the support of recognised institutions; CISM, Intellimech, NAFEMS, SIMAI, TCN Consortium, TechNet Alliance, and The Apulian Aerospace District along with EnginSoft, to award the best young researchers, students and academics from national and international Universities and Research Centres. With over 300 submitted projects, almost 50 of them reached the finals and five outstanding posters demonstration the use simulation in new emerging scenarios were presented with a prize.