BENCHMARK July 2025

BENCHED

View From Your Editorial Team

My favourite simulation stories are those that feature proper ‘real-world’ applications. They’re alwaysthe ones that resonate, for obvious reasons, and the ones that can sneak into the mainstream. Admitit – you get a little rush of excitement when you hear your own brand of simulation sauce mentionedon the six o’clock news or on that documentary you’re watching with your family; ‘Look! That’s what I do! It’son the TV! I know this! (It’s the next best thing to ‘look mum, I’m on TV!’).

These are the stories that also usually make the most engaging presentations or magazine articles. We allknow that simulation is used every day in the design and testing of virtually everything, but seeing real,relatable examples explained and discussed is always interesting. This issue includes one such story that Ifirst saw presented at the 2024 NAFEMS Iberia Conference in Madrid – a case study based on the city’scomplex road-tunnel network, demonstrating the power of combining physics-based modelling with data-driven surrogate techniques.

The recent NAFEMS World Congress is another real-world story. It saw us welcome over 650 attendees toSalzburg for the biggest and arguably best NWC yet. Feedback from the event has been fantastic, and weare delighted that the community has responded so well to our flagship event once again. As our summary ofthe Congress in this issue points out, the weather may not have been very bright, but the brilliance of thecontent in the Salzburg Congress Centre certainly shone through. Our summary includes thoughts fromsome of our attendees, as well as details on the award-winning presentations and papers from the event.

It'll come ‘round quickly enough, so it’s worth saving the date for the 2027 World Congress, which we’rehosting in Vancouver, Canada, on 25 – 28 April 2027. Get it in your diary now and, more importantly, bethere!

Talking of dates, the new-look ASSESS Simulation Leadership Summit will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, onMarch 11-13, 2026. We’re placing a greater emphasis on tangible outcomes and projects with the ASSESSinitiative, our future-looking think tank, and focusing the annual summit on demonstrating leadership in thefuture of simulation. With a fresh impetus and direction for the coming years, we’re excited to see what thenext few years hold for ASSESS, and for simulation itself.

Speaking of simulation (see what I did there?), we took our regular series LIVE during NWC25, with our veryown Márton Gróza hosting a lively panel discussion on Machine Learning with some of the AI and ML expertswho attended the Congress. You can read a summary of the discussion in this issue – we were pleased tobring the series off the pages of the magazine and into the real world. Going full circle, we now bring thatreal-world discussion back to you via the printed page. 

If you have any comments, questions, or opinions on anything in this issue of Benchmark, please drop me anote – it’s always great to hear from you.

If you have feedback or would like to see your article featured in benchmark contact benchmark@nafems.org