Altair announced that the 7th European Altair Technology Conference (ATC) attracted around 600 engineers, managers and simulation experts to Munich June 24-26. The conference kicked off with several technical workshops, product training sessions and “The Next Big Idea” panel discussion, during which industry experts from the additive manufacturing, aerospace and automotive sectors presented their latest projects. Notably, participants discussed how simulation technology and game-changing new manufacturing methods are influencing product development and the diffusion of innovation across multiple industries.
This event has grown from a user conference mainly for computer-aided engineering (CAE) specialists into one of the major product development technology events in Europe. It now covers a multitude of topics including lightweight design, multiphysics simulation, additive manufacturing, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) analysis, crash and impact simulation, and more.
On June 24th Altair also hosted the FEKO User Group Meeting. EMSS, the developer of the electromagnetic simulation solver FEKO, became part of Altair in June. The completion of the acquisition was officially announced on June 24th during the conference. The conference program on June 25th began with several keynote presentations by Altair and renowned customers Porsche, Ferrari, Jaguar Land Rover, Scania and Stadler Rail.
Jim Scapa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Altair, discussed the company’s organic growth as well as its dedication to helping customers radically change the way they design products and make decisions. Estimated 2014 revenues of 300 Million USD will be achieved through software sales, acquisitions, engineering services and Altair’s broad HPC offering. Dr. Uwe Schramm and James Dagg presented the company vision and product news.
On June 26th, Jeff Brennan presented a retrospective entitled “20 Years of OptiStruct®”, profiling the evolution and success of Altair’s structural analysis and optimization product. Technical keynote sessions included presentations from Scania, GKN Aerospace, Valeo, Voith Hydro, Magna Steyr, MAN and the event’s platinum sponsors HP and Intel. The event closed with a talk from Dr. Royston Jones of Altair about multi-disciplinary optimization, a topic garnering increased attention from both the automotive and aerospace industries.
“With more than 600 registrations and close to 600 actual attendees, we are very pleased with the outcome of this year’s conference”, said Dr. Detlef Schneider, Senior Vice President Europe, Middle East and Africa, Altair. “The event is an annual highlight for us, and attendance has grown annually. Topics covered are of major relevance for all industries that employ our solutions. Trends I see for 2014 and beyond include lightweight design, lead time reduction through process automation, multiphysics, and system simulation.”
"It was a pleasure to participate as a keynote presenter at the 7th European Altair Technology Conference and also to participate in "The Next Big Idea" panel discussion," said Mike Buckley, Technical Specialist at Jaguar Land Rover. "Events such as the European ATC enable us to keep in touch with our colleagues across a wide variety of engineering sectors, and give us a chance to view the latest technology innovations available."
