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Simulation advisory and method development
Buying the software is the easy part. Deciding what constitutes an acceptable analysis, and who is competent to sign it off, is where most in-house CAE programmes stall.
Built on NAFEMS competency frameworks and two decades of setting up simulation methodology across process, offshore and power projects.
The problem this solves
An organisation buys simulation licences, trains a few engineers and starts producing analysis. Within a year there are three engineers modelling the same class of problem three different ways, no agreed acceptance criteria, and no one able to say whether a given result is good enough to build from.
It is rarely a software problem or a skill problem. It is a methodology problem — the organisation never decided what "correct" looks like.
What an engagement covers
Method definition
For each recurring class of problem, agreeing the modelling approach: what gets modelled explicitly, what gets simplified, which element formulations and solver settings, and why.
Acceptance criteria
Deciding in advance what result constitutes a pass — the code clause, the safety factor, the stress category — so analysis is not retrospectively argued into acceptability.
Verification and validation
Establishing how a model is shown to be right: benchmark problems, convergence requirements, and where available, comparison against test or field data.
Sign-off and competence
Who is permitted to produce, check and approve analysis at each level of consequence, mapped against a recognised competency framework rather than seniority.
Documentation standards
What a report must contain to be auditable years later, when the engineer who wrote it has moved on and the design is being modified.
Typical engagement shape
- 01
Assessment
Review current practice — a sample of recent analyses, the tools in use, and how results are currently approved. Findings presented plainly, including what is already working.
- 02
Method workshop
Working sessions with your engineers to define the approach for each recurring problem class. Their input matters; imposed methodology is not followed.
- 03
Documented standard
A written simulation methodology your organisation owns — method, criteria, validation and sign-off, in a form that can be audited.
- 04
Pilot and calibration
Applying the standard to live work, with review, so the gap between written method and daily practice is closed early.
- 05
Handover
Your team operating the standard independently, with a defined route back to us for the unusual cases.
Building an in-house simulation capability?
Tell us where it is stalling. The first conversation is usually enough to identify whether the problem is method, competence or tooling.