The 35^th International CAE Conference was held in Vicenza, Italy from 28-29 October 2019. This annual conference focuses on the business and technology issues in the Simulation-based Engineering Sciences (SBES) arena and draws delegates from worldwide industry sectors, ranging from aerospace and oil and gas to civil engineering, manufacturing, and automotive. An innovation this year was the launch of an independent exhibition associated to the conference and focusing on all the technologies, service providers and applications that are interconnected with the digital transformation of businesses as they move towards Industry 4.0.

Mr Stefano Odorizzi, CEO of the Italian-based international engineering simulation consulting firm, EnginSoft, key sponsors and coordinators of the conference and exhibition, stated, "Increasing focus on Industry 4.0 requires companies and manufacturers of all sectors and sizes to begin a digitalization process if they wish to remain relevant and competitive in the global market today. Beyond the short-term business benefits to be gained, such as lower costs, increased innovation and improved productivity, a consensus that emerged from the many sessions at the event is that digitalization is also fundamental to enable organizations respond to and engage with the epochal changes that we are facing as human kind, while also addressing the traditional business challenges."
This event’s theme this year was "The engineering simulation path to digital transformation" and attracted around 1,500 delegates from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the USA and Africa. More than 100 speakers and over 70 exhibitors and sponsors from different industry sectors participated and the event was endorsed by NAFEMS and SIMAI as well as featuring events by APRE and SMACT and a specific Round Table session hosted by outstanding female engineers which discussed ways to attract more girls and women to the STEM subjects and the engineering disciplines in general.

The Plenary session of the conference spoke about the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation projects in various industry sectors as well as the role of digital transformation in assisting organizations to address market demand for greater environmental sustainability while also delivering improvements in product innovation, performance and efficiency, reducing costs in manufacturing, and assisting with predictive maintenance. The exhibition area showcased the technologies and services of all the big brands in computer-aided engineering such as ANSYS, Siemens, Altair, and Exagon, a range of vertical technologies including RecurDyn, Particleworks, Flownex and Volta, digital twin technology vendors such as LPH, Antemotion, and CIS, as well as emerging and new products on the landscape as the move to industry 4.0 generates products and services to respond to market demand.

The Research Agorà, an important forum and feature of the annual International CAE Conference dedicated to Research Project Consortia, this year featured 15 projects in work safety, fleet management, aerospace, biomedicine, robotics, manufacturing, electric vehicles, high performance computing and artificial intelligence.

A further annual initiative of the conference is the Poster Awards, a contest open to all students, graduates, researchers and faculty members from academic institutes and research centres with the dual purposes of recognizing excellence and innovation, and bridging the gap between academia and industry. "Growing collaboration between academia and industry and public institutions is fundamental to create a cohesive and credible response to today’s urgent challenges. The Poster Awards are just one more area where the International CAE Conference facilitates and supports these initiatives. This year 49 projects were selected, over 6,500 votes were received online for the projects and the five finalists were selected by a panel of judges from industry and academia," stated Odorizzi.

"This event, which to the best of my knowledge is the longest running in this sector and which this year saw the launch of the most comprehensive exhibition of technologies, products and service providers in the SBES and allied areas, has become an increasingly important event on the calendar for engineers to network, update their skills and deepen their knowledge of the latest technology developments and industry trends, as well as to engage with the important transformational issues we currently face. The spirited participation in the various sessions prove the validity of the event," he concluded.