Most Important Element in CAE - People

CAE is a jungle. Notably, CFD (color fluid dynamics) has a pretty contradictory reputation. The fact is, there exist excellent services, and yes, there are plenty of poor-quality services as well. The reason is the very different skills, experience, and resources of CFD users. CFD is a science, which is neither good nor bad. It is people who bring it to life. It is people who create the CFD results. In this little thought experiment, I would like to talk about human aspects in the CFD field.

Greatest Asset in CAE is people

People are the greatest asset of every workgroup, no doubt about that.  In the company I work for, we deal with all kinds of CFD simulations, on a daily basis. We develop and maintain CFD software,  we run technical support, and we deal with various consultancy projects for more than ten years. Again and again, we observe CFD users’ skills are critical. CFD has many parameters of various importance to deal with. Every project is special. From our technical support, we know that the vast majority of all the issues are caused by human error. (FYI: 80%+ of all issues are wrong boundary conditions ...) 

Quality can’t be replaced with quantity

Regarding CFD engineering skills, quality can’t be replaced with quantity. An outstanding job can be only done by outstanding people. Excellent CFD can be barely delivered by average people, no matter how many of them are involved. Engineering is special. Every successful engineering project is a result of focus, skills, experience, patience, and dedication.  I will give you an example. Consider, for example, construction labor. Where the employees use hands. The best employee of them all is let’s say 50% better than the average employee. But in engineering, where the employees use their brains (hopefully), the best engineer is 500% better than the average engineer. That means that human resources are incredibly more important in engineering than in other professions. It is normal that some teams outperform the other teams by far. There are different leagues and perhaps universes in engineering.

Ph.D. degree is a symptom, not a condition

A CFD engineering career is a journey. It starts with a good education. A deep theory basis is difficult to gain later in the career. It is definitely much easier to learn the deep CFD theory sooner than later. In the typical engineering job, the pressure on the project results is usually very high and the possibilities of deep theory studies are limited. The age also works against us. In my opinion, it is very difficult to find an outstanding CFD engineer without a Ph.D. degree. Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t say that the Ph.D. is a condition for excellence. It is rather a symptom that tells us that someone did go the extra mile. Ph.D. is rather a consequence than the cause. The Ph.D. degree is rather the result than the preconditioner of excellence. On top of that, the top CFD engineers have to keep educating themselves for their whole career. CFD is a young science that is developing rapidly.

Good leadership is absolutely critical

It takes quite some time to establish a good team. In my observation, it takes at least two years to grow the junior engineer to an advanced level. And at least five years to grow a junior to a senior engineer. Good leadership is absolutely critical. A great leader motivates the group to act towards a common goal and supports growth and strengths. Teams with a poor leader are doomed to underachievement, no matter how good the engineers really are.

CFD is like a marriage

I wish all of us a good choice when boarding and a good spirit in our teams. CFD is not a girl for one night. CFD is rather like a marriage. It needs trust, care, responsibility, constant attention, patience, and maintenance. Maintaining a good CFD workgroup is a journey and it really does matter who goes with you. Think twice when hiring people to your team. Think twice when treating the far most important element in engineering - the people.