Over the years, numerical analysis and simulation have become an indispensable part of mechanical engineering. Nowadays, various mechanical engineering disciplines, including structures, thermal, mechanisms, hydraulics, aero-thermal flow dynamics and propulsion, have mature analysis and simulation tools. Modelling and analysis of rather complex problems is possible in each discipline and it has become affordable thanks to the enormous advances in modern information technology.

However, there is continuous pressure to improve the engineering development process by reducing development time, and increasing quality and reliability. In order to achieve the next level of improvements it is necessary to apply concurrent engineering techniques and move to integrated, multi-discipline engineering analysis and simulation. This also holds the promise of performing multi-disciplinary system level optimisation of design problems. Apart from integrating tools and methods of various mechanical engineering disciplines, it is also necessary to integrate the engineering work into the overall industrial development processes, thus integrating CAE and CAD into enterprise-wide environments for System Engineering, Product Data / Lifecycle Management (PDM/PLM) and Workflow Management.

There is a clear trend to move to open and integrated platforms for CAD and CAE. However, further developments are needed to achieve significant improvements in the daily activities of industry.