New Year, New Challenges

We are barely a few weeks into the new year as I write this, and it already looks like 2024 is going to keep us all off balance. The war in Ukraine continues to broil, as conflicts in Israel, Iran, Pakistan, Korea and other countries have erupted. While the U.S. economy has stabilized, there is significant economic and political turmoil in other regions, and here at home we are headed into another tumultuous election year.

Within the engineering space, the workstation and 3D printer segments have taken a sales hit in the past year. Consolidation within the additive space continues, with Nexa3D buying Essentium, and Nano Dimension continuing its pursuit of Stratasys. Simulation software provider Ansys was also acquired by Synopsys in January.

For designers and engineers, this means there will be an increasing need for innovation and flexibility, as well as some hard decisions about equipment purchases and technology investments.

The state of the world also means that many companies will be looking for ways to re-shore or near-shore manufacturing, create more stability in their supply chains, and find ways to create better designs faster.

Quest for Power

In this issue, our lead features focus on one market that could benefit significantly from new ideas and better design: power and energy. Writer Jim Romeo takes a look at how design and simulation technology can help companies make improvements to grid design, and incorporate different energy sources like solar and nuclear in a way that will make energy more reliable, cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

Beth Stackpole, meanwhile, investigated how additive manufacturing is being leveraged to help create next-gen carbon capture systems that can help make current energy generation cleaner.

The issue also includes a road report from Autodesk University, tips for simplifying simulation, and the data requirements of digital twin solutions.

David Cohn is also on hand with reviews of a new Lenovo ultra-wide monitor and the HP Z4 Rack G5 workstation.

Looking ahead, the Digital Engineering staff is about to hit the road for a series of industry events, including Additive Manufacturing Strategies and 3DEXPERIENCE World in February, and the NAFEMS ASSESS Summit, the AMUG conference, and NVIDIA GTC in March.

We hope to spend some quality time with leading end users and our readers on our travels, so keep an eye out for myself, Kenneth Wong, and Stephanie Skernivitz on the show floor.

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