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This report explains how vision-driven multi-arm robots let factories switch tasks via software, not hardware rebuilds. 


Vision-Driven Robotics and the Rise of Universal Manufacturing

Gain the technical insights to make your robotics systems more reliable, maintainable, and future-ready.

New Report: Explore How Smart Cable Systems Are Powering the Next Generation of Robotics

The Guide to Understanding the Technologies Defining the Next Phase of Edge AI

The 2026 Edge AI Technology Report Just Launched

This Report shows how tools like artificial intelligence, digital twins, and on-demand manufacturing are no longer emerging concepts, but are already delivering measurable impact across the product lifecycle.

Innovation in Manufacturing 2026

Join Siemens and Altair for a full day of innovation, insights, and real-world applications shaping the future of simulation.

Simcenter Technology Conference 2026

Manufacturing

What is 3D printing? This article goes over the basics of 3D printing, otherwise known as additive manufacturing, covering its engineering principles and applications.


What is 3D Printing: A Comprehensive Guide to its Engineering Principles and Applications

What is CNC turning? This digital manufacturing technology, different from CNC milling in a few important ways, is used to make rounded or cylindrical parts with a high level of precision.

CNC Turning: Process, Operations, Machines, and Applications

This article is a practical PLC programming guide covering the five IEC 61131-3 languages, the scan cycle that governs how your code actually runs, ladder and structured text examples, and the mistakes that cost engineers the most commissioning time.

PLC Programming: Languages, Scan Cycles, and Working Ladder Logic

GD&T uses tolerance zones tied to a datum reference frame

GD&T is the symbolic language engineers use to state exactly how much a part can vary and still work. This guide covers the basics.

GD&T Explained: Symbols, Datums, and Tolerances

This article explains what is a PLC, what's inside it, how the scan cycle works, which programming languages the current IEC standard defines, and how to choose the right controller for your application.

What Is a PLC? A Complete Guide to Programmable Logic Controllers

True position is an important concept in GD&T

This guide covers the true position formula, how to read the feature control frame, and how MMC and LMC generate bonus tolerance.

True Position in GD&T: Formula, Tolerance Zones, and MMC

H7 tolerance specifies a hole that is never smaller than its nominal diameter

H7 tolerance is the default hole class in the ISO system of limits and fits. This guide explains why H7 is useful for manufacturers.

H7 Tolerance Explained: ISO 286 Hole Tolerance Charts

Quartz crystal oscillator on a printed circuit board

VCXO (voltage-controlled crystal oscillator) is a precision timing device that enables fine frequency control. This article explains how VCXOs work, their tuning range, Kv, key specifications, circuit design, applications, alternatives, and how to select the right device.

VCXO Design Guide: Voltage-Controlled Crystal Oscillator

Press fits are common when attaching bearings to shafts

A practical guide to press fit tolerance, including fit classes, interference calculations, and assembly methods.

Press Fit Tolerance: How to Specify Interference Fits

Full stepper control of the stepper motor

How microstepping works in stepper motors, the incremental torque cost of each resolution, and why finer microsteps do not improve positioning accuracy.

Microstepping Explained: Full Step, Half Step & Microstep

How closed-loop stepper motors use encoder feedback to eliminate missed steps, plus driver design, NEMA sizing, and when to choose a servo instead.

Closed-Loop Stepper Motor: How Encoder Feedback Works

AC Servo Drive Unit for Machine Control and Manufacturing

This guide covers what is inside a servo drive, how its nested servo loops behave, how EtherCAT and CANopen interfaces change the architecture, and how to size, tune, and safely commission one.

What Is a Servo Drive? Architecture, Control Loops, Fieldbus, and Sizing

3D-Printed Gear attached to the Shaft of a Micro Servo Motor

This article explains how a servo motor works, its construction, control loops, encoder and resolver feedback, AC and DC types, sizing math, and tuning fixes.

Servo Motor: How It Works, Types, Specifications, and Sizing

The electric wire behind the control board.

What a programmable automation controller is, how PACs are built and programmed, and how to choose between a PLC and a PAC.

What Is a Programmable Automation Controller (PAC)?

On October 14, 2026, under the towering canopy of the Shenzhen World Exhibition &amp; Convention Center (Shenzhen World for short), thousands will come together for the third edition of <a href="https://en.tctasia.cn/tctshenzhen.shtml">TCT Shenzhen</a>, an event focused on the growing 3D printing industry in South China’s Greater Bay Area. <img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1789757540429-1789757540429.jpeg" width="554" height="303" class="fr-fic fr-dii" />The region, which comprises tech hub Shenzhen, as well as Hong Kong, Macao, and Guangzhou, is becoming increasingly important within the broader additive manufacturing sector by driving innovation in the consumer and electronics subsegments and establishing large-scale AM factories to meet growing demand for 3D printed products in Southeast Asia and beyond. TCT Shenzhen is a reflection of the region’s significance as a global 3D printing hub, and serves as a place for industry players to connect, to showcase the latest innovations, and to create new business opportunities. Notably, for Chinese companies, TCT Shenzhen acts as a gateway into international markets, while international buyers and visitors of the event can see firsthand the region’s cutting-edge manufacturing capabilities.As we’ll cover, the three-day event has a full schedule and a diversity of things to discover, from over 250 exhibitors showcasing hundreds of new products, to over 80 sessions covering key industry trends, to various programs like the 3D Genius Hub and a Hackaday hackathon. <h2>Driving the New Wave of 3D Printing Innovation</h2>In Hall 15 of Shenzhen World, TCT Shenzhen organizers are preparing to host over 250 exhibitors spanning the entire value chain of additive manufacturing, including hardware, materials, software, services, and end-use applications. While the full list of exhibitors has not been disclosed yet, here’s a glimpse of what will be on show.<h3>Hardware</h3>Under the theme “Drive the New Wave of 3D Printing Innovation”, the event will showcase the latest 3D printing equipment, including metal, polymer, ceramic, and sand mold printing technologies. Among the leading exhibitors in the hardware space are Avimetal, ELEGOO, Formlabs, Makera, Creality, lingxi, eufyMake, Xhorse, MINGPIN, Douchuan 3D, WSX, GUANGSU.<h3>Materials</h3>In the materials segment, exhibitors including Zhongyuan, Honggang Petrochemical, Royal, Global Laser Box, and HISUN will display a wide variety of 3D printing consumables, from consumer polymers and engineering composites, to industrial metal powders and technical ceramics.  <h3>Software and Services</h3>On the software and services side, TCT Shenzhen will welcome a host of innovative exhibitors, including specialists in CAD modeling, topology optimization, digital twin technology, process simulation, slicing, and digital manufacturing services. While the exhaustive list of exhibitors has not yet been released, visitors can expect to see key players in the software and services space, including GENI, HOME-LINK, Pliith, Demute Intelligence, FLOW 3D, ZHUJIN, and pancolour. <h3>Applications</h3>Of course, no trade show would be complete without a focus on end-use applications that demonstrate the versatility of 3D printing technologies and the capacity of the value chain components exhibited. Various applications will be on show, including consumer products, consumer electronics, luxury goods like jewelry, tooling and molds, new energy vehicles, dental and medical devices, and low-altitude economy systems. Notably, TCT Shenzhen 2026 will highlight AI-enabled 3D printing applications, especially related to the use of AI for 3D printing design and manufacturing workflow efficiency. On this front, several AI innovators will be present, including Tripo AI, Meshy, DreamTech, Hi3D, Deemos, QUWAN, and SeaMe. <h2>Seven Highlights at TCT Shenzhen 2026</h2>In addition to the main exhibition hall, TCT Shenzhen also invites visitors to participate in a range of discussions, networking events, and interactive experiences, all geared towards driving AM innovation and creating valuable connections. Here are the seven key highlights to look forward to:<ol><li>80+ Sessions on Industry Trends</li></ol>Over the course of the three-day trade show, there will be over 80 sessions covering the 3D printing industry’s latest developments and biggest trends. These sessions comprise industry forums, technical presentations, product launches, maker activities, and networking opportunities. Topics to be covered include medical and dental applications, consumer products, thermal management, the low-altitude economy, and global market expansion. <img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1789757540451-1789757540451.jpeg" width="624" height="390" class="fr-fic fr-dii" />Source: TCT Shenzhen<ol><li>3D Genius Hub</li></ol>After previous successful editions, the 3D Genius Hub is back again for TCT Shenzhen 2026. With a dedicated space for innovation, discussions, and maker culture, the 3D Genius Hub emphasizes 3D printing’s role as a creative technology, enabling new ideas to come to life. As TCT Shenzhen says: “Rather than simply viewing products on the show floor, visitors can discover new ideas around future products, innovative design and digital manufacturing.” As part of the 3D Genius Hub, the organizers are also connecting with INNO100 Global Innovation Flagship Store to showcase new 3D printing projects—including popular Kickstarters—from around the world.<ol><li>Business Matchmaking</li></ol>Networking is an integral part of industry events and to support this side of TCT Shenzhen, organizers have set up a Business Matchmaking program that facilitates face-to-face meetings between exhibitors, buyers, distributors, agents, and end users from Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, and beyond. As part of this program, matches are strategically made based on specific business requirements that are collected ahead of the event by TCT Shenzhen.<ol><li>AI + 3D Printing Intelligent Manufacturing Forum</li></ol>In this topical forum, a number of AI experts and companies will come together to discuss how AI is impacting the 3D printing industry, with a particular focus on how AI tools, such as Tripo AI and Hi3D, can aid in the development of new products through generative design. The forum will also cover AI’s role in optimizing production processes and increasing manufacturing efficiency, showing how the technology can lead to new commercial opportunities. <ol><li>Hackaday Program</li></ol>Hackaday, the global open-source hardware platform, will be making its first appearance in China as part of a TCT Shenzhen program. The collaborative program will consist of a hackathon, maker project showcases, and a DIY activity that will invite participants to make their own electronic badges. This interactive segment of TCT Shenzhen is open to all visitors, including those without professional AM experience, and aims to drive connection and innovation through hands-on making.<ol><li>3D Printing Footwear Summit</li></ol>TCT Shenzhen will be hosting the second edition of the China 3D Printing Footwear Summit this October. As the name suggests, this summit will be focused on 3D printed footwear, which is one of the most visible and fastest growing consumer AM application areas. From sandals to performance athletic shoes, 3D printing is transforming how designers and manufacturers approach shoe development. To discuss this transformation, footwear brands, equipment and materials companies, and segment experts will come together to talk about the current state and future of footwear 3D printing.<ol><li>The 3D Printing Farm Ecosystem Summit</li></ol>Last but certainly not least in TCT Shenzhen’s event round-up is the 3D Printing Farm Ecosystem Summit. This event will showcase one of the region’s particular strengths: the establishment of large-scale 3D print farms, capable of massive production volumes. The 3D Printing Farm Ecosystem Summit will bring together experts in the field to look at what’s behind the rise in these production sites (i.e., advances in desktop 3D printing, AI, cross-border e-commerce), as well as discuss print farm operations, supply-chain collaboration, and more. <h2>Visitor Information &amp; Directions</h2>As TCT Shenzhen organizers make their final preparations, visitors are welcome to <a href="https://en.tctasia.cn/tctshenzhen.shtml">pre-register for the upcoming event</a>. (Note that registration for visitors is free until October 13, 2026.) As we said, the event will be held over three days, from October 14 to 16, 2026, at the Shenzhen World Exhibition &amp; Convention Center.  <img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1789757540465-1789757540465.jpeg" width="517" height="442" class="fr-fic fr-dii" />Source: TCT ShenzhenThe venue is accessible by public transit, and TCT Shenzhen has provided the following directions:Getting to the venue by metro:Line 12 → Guozhan North Station, Exit D; approximately 15 minutes on foot or 5 minutes by bike to Hall 15. Or, Line 20 → Guozhan Station, Exit D; approximately 15 minutes on foot or 5 minutes by bike to Hall 15.Getting to the venue from Shenzhen North Railway Station:Take Line 5 from Shenzhen North Station to Lingzhi Station, transfer to Line 12 and get off at Guozhan North Station, Exit D. Hall 15 is approximately a 15-minute walk from the station. Total journey time is around 1.5 hours.Getting to the venue from Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport:Grab a taxi (approximately 25 minutes) or take the metro line 11 from Airport Station to Airport North Station, transfer to Line 20 and get off at Guozhan Station, Exit D. Walk approximately 15 minutes to Hall 15. Total journey time is around 45 minutes.<a href="https://en.tctasia.cn/tctshenzhen.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">For additional information about the event, check out the TCT Shenzhen event page.</a><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1789760027466-TCT%232.png" style="width:100%px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" />

With just one month before the South Asian 3D printing trade show, we look at the events and showcases visitors will be able to take part in.

What Not to Miss at TCT Shenzhen 2026

<h2 id="isPasted">What Is Lean Manufacturing? </h2>Lean manufacturing takes the old saying 'waste not, want not' and applies it as a blueprint for smarter, more efficient production. Toyota pioneered this approach in the 1950s, and today, businesses across the world use it to streamline their processes and cut waste. The goal is simple: eliminate anything that doesn’t add value to the final product. <h2>What Are the Key Principles of Lean Manufacturing? </h2>Lean manufacturing is based on five main principles that help companies improve production while reducing waste. Let’s break them down: <h3>Identify Value </h3>The first step in lean manufacturing is figuring out what customers actually want. What makes a product useful to them? Is it durability, speed, or cost? Anything that doesn’t contribute to said value is considered waste and should be reduced or, even better, removed. The goal is to make sure every step in production is helping to deliver what really matters. <h3>Map the Value Stream </h3>Once you know what’s valuable, the next step is to look at the entire production process and pinpoint where waste happens. This is called value stream mapping. It helps flag delays, unnecessary steps, and anything else that slows things down. Once these areas of waste are identified, it's time to start trimming the fat.  <h3>Create Flow </h3>Next up is breaking down each part of the process to make sure everything moves smoothly, with parts and materials transitioning easily from one step to the next without delays. This can involve training employees, adjusting production workflows, and incorporating automation like robotics and AI to improve efficiency. <h3>Establish Pull </h3>Instead of making large batches based on predictions, lean manufacturing uses a pull system—producing only when there’s actual demand. This prevents overproduction, reduces excess inventory, and keeps production responsive. A pull-based approach means companies manufacture what’s needed, when it’s needed, avoiding wasted materials and unnecessary costs. <h3>Seek Perfection </h3>Lean isn’t a quick fix—it’s a mindset of constant improvement. Businesses should keep looking at how they are doing things, listening to employee feedback, and making small changes to get even better results.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1789378221965-1789378221965.png" class="fr-fic fr-dib" /><h2 id="isPasted">What Are the Benefits of Lean Manufacturing? </h2><ul><li>Lean manufacturing makes businesses more flexible, efficient, and responsive to customer demands. </li><li>Flexibility: Lean keeps production adaptable, so businesses can react quickly to market changes. </li><li>Efficiency: Simpler processes move products through production faster with less waste. </li><li>Quality: Regularly fine-tuning production leads to fewer defects, more consistent results, and better products overall. </li><li>Cost savings: Less waste means less money, with lower costs across the board. </li><li>Sustainability: A manufacturing approach that uses only what’s needed results in a smaller environmental footprint. </li></ul><h2>What Are the Main Types of Waste in Lean Manufacturing? </h2>Lean manufacturing points to eight areas where waste tends to build up. <ul><li>Overproduction: Making more than needed. </li><li>Waiting time: Delays between production steps. </li><li>Unnecessary motion: Extra movement that doesn’t add value. </li><li>Excess inventory: Storing more materials or products than necessary. </li><li>Defects: Errors that require fixing or scrapping. </li><li>Over-processing: Doing extra work that isn’t required. </li><li>Unutilised talent: Failing to make the most of employees’ skills. </li><li>Transportation waste: Moving products and materials more than necessary. </li></ul><h2>How Does Lean Manufacturing Work? </h2>Lean manufacturing works by analysing workflows and cutting waste at every step. Using strategies like just-in-time production, standardisation, and automation, lean keeps operations running as smoothly as possible. Different industries and technologies tailor the application of lean principles to meet each specific need. <h4>Lean by Technology </h4>The tools and techniques used for lean manufacturing also vary: injection moulding is ideal for large-scale lean manufacturing, while CNC machining and 3D printing enable rapid prototyping and small-batch production. <ul><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/services/injection-moulding/" target="_blank">Injection moulding</a>: Great for high-volume production, injection moulding produces consistent parts quickly while keeping material waste low. </li><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/services/cnc-machining/" target="_blank">CNC machining</a>: Reduces waste by automating precision cutting, eliminating human error, and optimising material use. </li><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/services/3d-printing/" target="_blank">3D printing</a>: Supports lean through rapid iteration, allowing companies to refine designs without mass production waste. </li><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.hubs.com/sheet-metal-fabrication" target="_blank">Sheet metal fabrication</a>: Helps manufacturers produce only what’s needed by using lean-friendly, on-demand production methods. </li></ul><h2>What Are the Biggest Challenges of Implementing Lean Manufacturing? </h2>Switching to lean manufacturing isn’t always easy. It requires companies to rethink the way they work, which can take time and effort. <ul><li>Resistance to change: Employees and managers may be hesitant. </li><li>Upfront costs: Training and restructuring require investment. </li><li>Complexity: Large operations can be harder to streamline. </li><li>Balancing efficiency and flexibility: Lean should improve workflow without becoming too rigid. Process for process’s sake isn’t helpful.  </li></ul><h2>How Has Lean Manufacturing Changed Over Time? </h2>Lean manufacturing has come a long way since the 1950s. Quickly expanding beyond the Toyota factory floor, it was widely adopted across industries such as aerospace, medical devices, and consumer electronics. Companies have refined lean practices using new tools like Six Sigma, automation, and real-time data monitoring to make operations even more efficient. The biggest evolution in lean manufacturing has been the introduction and integration of new digital technologies. Automation, robotics, AI-driven analytics, and predictive maintenance now allow manufacturers to optimise workflows, reduce human error, and cut lead times.  The rise of on-demand manufacturing platforms, like Protolabs, has also transformed lean manufacturing. Founded in 1999, Protolabs pioneered online manufacturing, allowing companies to rapidly prototype and produce parts with minimal waste. Today, Protolabs also offers instant access to a highly vetted global network of manufacturing partners, further expanding capacity while speeding up workflows. <h2>How Does on-Demand Manufacturing Support Lean Principles? </h2>On-demand manufacturing is one of most effective tools in the lean utility belt. Producing only what’s needed, when it’s needed, helps businesses avoid overproduction, lower costs, and stay flexible. <ul><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/resources/blog/the-theory-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-just-in-time-manufacturing/" target="_blank">Just-in-time production</a>: Reduces excess inventory.<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/resources/blog/the-theory-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-just-in-time-manufacturing/" target="_blank"> </a> </li><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/services/rapid-prototyping/" target="_blank">Rapid prototyping</a>: Allows fast design iterations. </li><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/resources/insight/supply-chain-management/" target="_blank">Optimised supply chains</a>: Uses <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/resources/blog/lean-manufacturing-in-the-age-of-digital/" target="_blank">digital manufacturing</a> and AI to match production with real demand. </li></ul>As an on-demand manufacturing platform, Protolabs unlocks a variety of lean principles for engineers. With automated quoting, digital workflows, and rapid production, we help companies adopt a leaner, more streamlined manufacturing process.<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/why-protolabs/" target="_blank"> </a> <h2 id="isPasted">FAQs About Lean Manufacturing </h2><h3>How is lean different from Six Sigma?  </h3>Lean manufacturing focuses on eliminating waste and streamlining production so that every step adds value. Six Sigma, on the other hand, is mostly about reducing variation and defects to improve product quality. Many businesses combine both—lean to optimise workflows and Six Sigma to enhance precision and consistency.<h3>What are the 5 M's of lean manufacturing?  </h3>The 5 M’s refer to manpower, machines, materials, methods, and measurement. These are key factors to evaluate when trying to identify possible areas of waste. <h3>Can lean be applied to low-volume production?  </h3>Yes, lean works for both mass production and lower-volume custom manufacturing by stepping up efficiency at every level.<h3> How does lean manufacturing impact supply chains? </h3>It reduces excess inventory, improves supplier coordination, and boosts overall efficiency in the supply chain. <h3> What are some real-world examples of lean manufacturing?  </h3>Toyota revolutionised manufacturing with its just-in-time system, Amazon applies a lean, automated approach in its fulfilment centres, and Protolabs brings lean to digital manufacturing, enabling fast, on-demand production. <h2 id="isPasted">Get a Quote for Lean Manufacturing </h2>Protolabs helps companies apply lean manufacturing principles with digital production. <ul><li>Rapid prototyping with CNC machining and 3D printing. </li><li>Low-volume production to reduce waste and costs. </li><li>Rapid injection moulding for lean, high-efficiency part production. </li><li>Automated workflows for fast, efficient manufacturing. </li></ul>Make manufacturing leaner, faster, and more efficient. <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.protolabs.com/en-gb/ecom/get-a-quote/?lang=en-GB&amp;getaquote=true" target="_blank">Upload your designs</a> to get a free, instant quote.

Lean manufacturing focuses on creating more value with less waste. Pioneered by Toyota in the 1950s, this approach helps businesses streamline processes, improve efficiency, and eliminate activities that don't add value to the final product.

What are the Key Principles of Lean Manufacturing?

The brand-new FibreSeeker 3 has the key distinction of bringing continuous fibre 3D printing to the consumer market. At around the price of a mid-level FFF printer or CNC router, the FibreSeeker promises new possibilities for engineers and product designers. Rather than being limited to visual models and conventional prototypes, this printer is designed to produce reinforced functional parts. According to FibreSeek, continuous carbon fibre reinforced specimens printed on the system have achieved tensile strength of up to 900 MPa along the fibre direction, although actual part performance depends on factors including fibre placement, material selection, geometry and print parameters.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzg5MTU0Mjc0MTM5LTE3ODkxNTQyNzQxMzkuanBlZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" width="624" height="416" class="fr-fic fr-dii" />Source: FibreSeek<h2>Carbon Fibre 3D Printing Today</h2>Carbon fibre is known for being exceptionally stiff, strong, and lightweight, making it a valuable material in areas like aviation, civil engineering, and consumer goods. In these fields, carbon fibre parts are usually made in a mold, where sheets of woven fibres are combined with a resin to form a strong composite.Carbon fibre can also be found in FFF (FDM), the most common type of 3D printing technology. Many thermoplastic filaments like PETG, ABS, and nylon can be formulated with the addition of carbon or glass fibres. However, engineers familiar with carbon fibre molding are likely to be disappointed by carbon fibre 3D printing filament—despite it being much easier to process than traditional layups. Why? Because these filaments contain randomly oriented chopped fibres rather than the uniformly oriented fibres found in carbon fibre fabrics and prepregs. Chopped fibres can improve stiffness, dimensional stability and depending on the material formulation and processing conditions, certain strength properties. However, they generally cannot transfer loads as efficiently as continuous fibres aligned with a principal load direction.Harnessing the strength benefits of carbon fibre requires continuous fibre placement, allowing loads to be transferred along the full length of the fibre. A normal FFF 3D printer won’t help here: continuous strands of fibre can’t be extruded through a regular printer nozzle or be made to follow the same patterns as molten thermoplastic, and the printer has no way to sever the fibre upon completion of a layer. Instead, a specialized continuous fibre 3D printer is needed, but these printers are more complex than standard extrusion printers and have historically been marketed exclusively at industrial users.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzg5MTU0Mjc0MTQ2LTE3ODkxNTQyNzQxNDYuanBlZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" width="624" height="356" class="fr-fic fr-dii" />Source: FibreSeek<h2>Introducing the FibreSeeker 3  <iframe id="6a8f393675f7de85487b9297" width="250" class="specs-iframe" height="440" src="https://wevolver.com/iframe/specs/fibreseek-fibreseeker-3?iframe=true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">   </iframe></h2>In November 2025, a new 3D printing company called FibreSeek launched a Kickstarter campaign for the FibreSeeker 3, a continuous fibre 3D printer marketed at the consumer market. The campaign described a printer that would use a proven technology called Composite Fibre Co-extrusion (CFC), at a significantly lower price point than any continuous fibre machine on the market. Before the FibreSeeker 3, the most affordable machines for printing continuous carbon fibre sat around the $10,000 mark, while the Markforged Mark 2, probably the most well-known system in the category, currently costs around $20,000. With an MSRP of $3,499 (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) and almost half that price for the earliest backers, the FibreSeeker clearly obliterates that price floor.The FibreSeeker 3 campaign had raised over $4 million by the time of its conclusion in January, making it one of the most successful examples of crowdfunding for a 3D printer. By comparison, another printer that set about to reshape the market in its technological category, the Formlabs Form 1, raised just under $3 million on the same platform.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzg5MTU0Mjc0MTUxLTE3ODkxNTQyNzQxNTEuanBlZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" width="624" height="351" class="fr-fic fr-dii" />Source: FibreSeek<h2>A Closer Look at the Printer</h2>Only a handful of continuous fibre 3D printers exist, and not all of them work in the same way. The wide technological gap between 3D printing and traditional carbon fibre manufacturing means companies have had to devise creative ways to achieve continuous fibre placement during 3D printing. Some use fibres pre-impregnated with resin; some use a combination of fibre placement and UV resin curing.FibreSeek deploys a technology called Composite Fibre Co-extrusion (CFC), which has been used in industrial-grade systems for over a decade and which offers some unique benefits over competing processes. CFC works by embedding continuous fibre strands into melted thermoplastic during extrusion: one nozzle deposits the pre-impregnated continuous fibres as another extrudes a matrix thermoplastic. Advantages of the technology include precise fibre steering along curved trajectories, the ability to create reinforced lattice structures, and an open material system for maximum thermoplastic compatibility.The novelty of the FibreSeeker 3 is putting that proven industrial technology within an affordable and user-friendly desktop system. According to FibreSeek, the enclosed printer offers three printing modes: FFF-only for fast prints, dual-nozzle for selective reinforcement, or CFC-only for maximum strength. And the accompanying Rocket Slicer software appears versatile enough to serve a range of users. Beginner-friendly features include simplified infill selection and optimized toolpath generation based on load distribution and fibre paths, but the software also offers a more technical “expert” mode for experienced users.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzg5MTU0Mjc0MTY3LTE3ODkxNTQyNzQxNjcucG5nIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" width="624" height="211" class="fr-fic fr-dii" />Source: FibreSeekPerformance is where the FibreSeeker 3 will ultimately be judged, and signs are promising for early backers and future customers: test prints have been achieved with 900 MPa tensile strength—stronger than machined aluminum 6061 and worlds apart from chopped fibre filament. Suitable prints could therefore include drone frames, robotic joints, tooling, bike components, and prosthetics. A community of new FibreSeeker users has also been sharing use cases for the printer, such as a reinforced motorcycle motor mount that would cost $1,000 if sent to a machine shop for steel milling.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzg5MTU0Mjc0MTcyLTE3ODkxNTQyNzQxNzIuanBlZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" width="624" height="416" class="fr-fic fr-dii" />Filament. Source: FibreSeek<h2>Continuous Fibres for Everyone</h2>The 3D printing community is about to find out whether FibreSeek has delivered on its bold promise of a consumer-priced continuous carbon fibre printer.Mass production of the printer began in April, and machines are being shipped to “VIP” backers now as the company works on expanding its material range. In addition to its current CCF (Continuous Carbon fibre) and CGF (Continuous Glass fibre) consumables, FibreSeek will later introduce CBF (Continuous Basalt fibre) and CKF (Continuous Kevlar fibre) to suit applications with specific thermal or impact resistance requirements. All of these materials are offered at a price point suitable for the machine’s target market: 500 meters of X-CCF continuous carbon fibre costs $49, about a fifth the cost of Markforged materials and comparable to the raw materials used in carbon fibre molding that come with significant tooling and labor expenses.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNzg5MTU0Mjc0MTc3LTE3ODkxNTQyNzQxNzcuanBlZyIsImVkaXRzIjp7InJlc2l6ZSI6eyJ3aWR0aCI6OTUwLCJmaXQiOiJjb3ZlciJ9fX0=" width="624" height="416" class="fr-fic fr-dii" />FibreSeek at TCT Shanghai 2025. Source: FibreSeek.On the face of it, the advantages of a machine like the FibreSeeker are clear: a low price point, a huge strength increase over regular FFF, a tool-free process more convenient than injection molding, and a low-waste, desktop-friendly alternative to CNC machining. Its impact on the carbon fibre 3D printing market could therefore be significant. Most importantly, consumers and smaller engineering firms gaining access to continuous fibre printing will give them powers only hinted at by chopped fibre filaments.FibreSeeker 3 will be available through a <a href="https://usstore.fibreseek3d.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">limited-time pre-sale on the FibreSeek eShop</a>, with the first batch limited to 500 units.

Following a successful crowdfunding campaign, the FibreSeeker 3 from FibreSeek is bringing continuous carbon fiber printing to a new audience.

FibreSeeker 3 Brings Continuous Carbon Fiber 3D Printing to the Masses

The world of medical AM is full of promise. Are you leveraging it to its full clinical and operational potential?Welcome to the 9th edition of <a href="https://app.swapcard.com/login/event/additiv-medical-2026/registration/VGlja2V0VHlwZV83NTQwNA==:1/page/UmVnaXN0cmF0aW9uRm9ybV81NzAyMA==">ADDITIV Medical</a>, the premier virtual summit where patient-centric care meets advanced technology. On October 21, 2026, we are bringing together clinical leaders, medical executives, and pioneering engineers for a high-impact, 2.5-hour briefing.Our focus is on addressing the challenges that stand between groundbreaking 3D printing technology and the patients who need it most.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1789030216075-COVER-ARTICLE_MEDICAL.png" style="width:100%px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" />Why Healthcare Leaders &amp; Innovators Are Joining Us:3 Expert-led Panels: 45 minutes of debate tackling everything from surgical precision to the actual economics of personalized care, followed by an audience Q&amp;A.High-level Networking: Use the Swapcard platform to schedule virtual meetings to collaborate with peers, hospital decision-makers, and strategic partners.The Global Pulse: Join hundreds of industry minds to benchmark your medical AM strategy, ensuring your institution delivers cutting-edge care heading into 2027.Register for ADDITIV Medical <a href="https://app.swapcard.com/login/event/additiv-medical-2026/registration/VGlja2V0VHlwZV83NTQwNA==:1/page/UmVnaXN0cmF0aW9uRm9ybV81NzAyMA==" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HERE</a>. October 21, 2026, 10 AM EST / 4:00 PM CEST.<hr />ADDITIV is a series of global virtual events dedicated to additive manufacturing, offering panel discussions, workshops and networking with AM experts from leading industrial companies &amp; the most innovative firms in the field.

ADDITIV Medical 2026 will bring together more than 500 medical professionals

ADDITIV Medical 2026 to explore Additive Manufacturing

<a href="https://cdfam.com/pasteur-labs-nyc25/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Alexander Lavin of Pasteur Labs</a> spent his New York presentation at CDFAM on simulation intelligence, and stopped partway through to name the thing underneath it: the data interfaces problem in digital engineering.<blockquote>If you think you don’t have this data problem, you just haven’t run into it yet.— Alexander Lavin, Pasteur Labs, CDFAM NYC 2025</blockquote><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SfypDDqn0qY?&amp;t=986s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">                   </iframe>Pasteur hit it early, four years before that talk, and ended up building a data engineering pipeline for its own machine learning staff before it could build much else on top.That is the shape of it across four years of CDFAM presentations. Many of the talks that look like they are about AI turn out, once you get past the demo, to be about data: where it came from, what format it arrived in, and whether it carries the information the problem actually depends on.A 2022 article opened on the gap between text-to-image progress and 3D engineering, and landed on the reason: “the same volume of open data does not exist for 3D objects in quite the same way.” Four years later, the three answers taking shape are common formats, synthetic data, and fields.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1789403099289-3MF+ISO+Banner+150+X.jpg" style="width:100%px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" /><h2> </h2><h2>Formats are the Plumbing</h2>Geometry has to move between tools before anything else can happen, and the format it moves in decides what survives the trip. The STL problem is the familiar version: a lattice or a TPMS structure described by a short mathematical function becomes an enormous pile of triangles the moment it is tessellated, and the design freedom is then capped by triangle count.The <a href="https://3mf.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">3MF Consortium</a>’s Volumetric and Implicit Extension attacks this by letting a file carry spatial functions — a stack of images, a mathematical function, or both — so material properties and geometry travel as the thing itself. Jan Orend, who contributes to the specification on behalf of EOS, framed the stakes plainly in a <a href="https://cdfam.com/3mf-consortium-volumetric-and-implicit-extension-release/" target="_blank">CDFAM interview</a>: the consortium exists to solve “the interoperability challenges that are holding back the industry.”That matters more now than it did when the extension was released. Every agentic workflow demonstrated assumes tools can call each other and hand over geometry without losing what makes it meaningful. Wesley Essink of Siemens showed the receiving end, exporting the same implicit model out as volumetric data, mesh, B-rep, beams or slice data depending on where it was headed next.<h2>Synthetic data, because the real stuff is expensive and wrong</h2>The bottleneck Francis Bitonti of <a href="https://www.lexset.ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lexset </a>described in 2023 has aged well. Collect images, send them to a third party for annotation, wait, run quality assurance, send them back with feedback, repeat. Hundreds of people touching your data, biases and fatigue baked into the labels, security exposure, and a cycle his customers measured in months.<blockquote>Before working with us this process can take about six months, and we’ve even had some customers say this takes a year to go and collect these data sets.— Francis Bitonti, Lexset, CDFAM NYC 2023</blockquote><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RANHS_7PpE4?&amp;t=296s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">          </iframe>His conclusion was that crowdsourcing does not scale with model size, and that simulation and synthetic data are where the field goes next. It went there. Verena Vogler of McNeel Europe described teams using Grasshopper to generate training sets as a matter of course. Wasil Rezk of BeyondMath showed models trained on self-generated data grounded in first principles rather than on a customer’s simulation archive, reporting predictions within a few percent of full CFD while needing an order of magnitude less data, and more to the point, generalising to geometries the model had never seen.The economic argument is the one that lands with manufacturers. Training data you generate is training data you do not have to buy, annotate, or wait a year for.<h2>Fields, where words run out</h2>The most interesting shift is in what counts as data in the first place.Mike Frei of ARENA-AI opened his Barcelona talk on human intuition — how we know by looking how heavy something is, learned across thousands of small physical feedbacks. Then he put up a band-pass filter, a structure used in RF constantly, and demonstrated how the electromagnetic wave propagates through it.<blockquote>Probably few of you would know. Even fewer people actually have an intuition of how to change the structure to have it do something different.— Mike Frei, ARENA-AI, CDFAM Barcelona 2026 · <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd80tO-pZzM&amp;t=160s" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">watch</a></blockquote><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dd80tO-pZzM?&amp;t=160s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">        </iframe>An 8mm square, one layer, and the simulation still takes minutes. A modern system might be twenty layers and half a metre across. There is no vocabulary that compresses this usefully, because the thing being described is a continuous field, and language is the wrong container for it. His group’s answer is two models: a forward model that takes geometry and materials and characterises the electromagnetic behaviour, and an inverse model that runs the other way.The same logic shows up in geometry tools. Essink’s demonstration of field-driven design treats a parameter as something that varies through space rather than as a number — lattice parameters, fillet radii, shell thicknesses, all under spatial control.<blockquote>This is really where we can take data and map it to the geometry, because a lot of the data that we work with is either volumetric or planar.— Wesley Essink, Siemens Digital Industries Software, CDFAM Barcelona 2026</blockquote>The inputs he listed are instructive: CAD features, simulation output, raw point clouds, a CSV with a scalar at every point, image data. Any of it can drive geometry once geometry accepts fields as an input. Luminary’s <a href="https://cdfam.com/luminary/" target="_blank">case for physics AI as a strategic advantage</a> rests on the same foundation — the value sits in the field data, and in being able to compute over it fast enough to stay in the loop.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1789403334890-Coreform+A+range+of+analyses+run+with+IGA.jpeg" style="width:100%px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" /><h2>What this adds up to</h2>Formats decide what can move. Synthetic data decides what can be learned. Fields decide what can be expressed at all. The AI tooling is the visible layer, and it rests on those three.Which is the same thing people at CDFAM were discussing<a href="https://cdfam.com/the-need-for-data-for-ai-generated-engineering/" target="_blank"> in 2022</a>, before there was much to demonstrate: more than geometry, this needs design intent and validation.<hr />Hear it from the people building itSearch the <a href="https://cdfam.com/presentation-index/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CDFAM presentation index</a>, with transcripts of every recorded presentation in the series. Search by speaker, company or topic, or search what was actually said to find the moment itself. Every result links to the exact second of the recording.

The data problem

The Data Foundation for Engineering with AI

Across four years of <a href="https://cdfam.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CDFAM Computational Design Symposium</a> talks, AI agents have gone from a research curiosity to something structural engineers run in Slack. The record of how fast that happened is sitting in the transcripts.<table><tbody><tr><td>Event</td><td>Talks referencing AI agents</td></tr><tr><td>NYC 2023</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>Berlin 2024</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>NYC 2024</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Amsterdam 2025</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>NYC 2025</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Barcelona 2026</td><td>14</td></tr><tr><td>Washington DC 2026</td><td>4 of 6, so far</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://cdfam.com/cd-dc-26/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Washington DC</a> recordings are still incomplete. Four of the first six talks released mention agents.The word arrived before the capability. In 2023, when Chris McComb of Carnegie Mellon described agents to a <a href="https://cdfam.com/nyc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CDFAM audience in New York</a>, he was reporting an experiment rather than a product. His group had run human design teams against hybrid ones, and the hybrid teams were missing half their people.<blockquote>We had some human teams, we had some hybrid teams where we ripped out half of the people and replaced them with AI agents.Chris McComb, Carnegie Mellon University, CDFAM NYC 2023</blockquote><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/72yVB9_PNJE?&amp;t=868s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">              </iframe>The finding was that the hybrid teams held up, and that they held up because communication went up rather than down. People took on what McComb called the role of an AI handler, translating between the model and the task so the agents could stay useful members of the team. Two years later that description reads less like a laboratory result and more like a job.<h2>The Turn</h2>What changed between 2023 and now was not the idea but the plumbing. By the Amsterdam symposium in 2025, Andrew Sartorelli of Synera was describing an agentic layer sitting on top of automated workflows that already existed, wired into the systems a manufacturer actually keeps its knowledge in: product lifecycle management, simulation data management, requirements tracking. The agents were not being asked to invent engineering. They were being given access to it.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RfBTGqdDsRg?&amp;t=328s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">             </iframe>That is the pattern that repeats across every discipline in the year since. The interesting work is rarely the model. It is the harness.<h2>Aerospace</h2>Ryan McClelland's generatively designed spacecraft parts at NASA Goddard were already familiar to the CDFAM audience by 2024, but the agent question he raised was about assembly rather than geometry. Once individual evolved components exist, they can be combined into larger systems either by code or by agents, until an automated electronic box is something you specify rather than something you draw. The unit of design moves up a level.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DV_DVw0UIF0?&amp;t=1257s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">           </iframe><h2>Automotive</h2>The most concrete automotive account came from SEAT in <a href="https://cdfam.com/bcn/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Barcelona in 2026</a>. A year of automation work on body-in-white development had already cut development time from two hours to five minutes in one case, and from forty-two hours to one in another, before agents entered the picture at all.What they showed next was a multi-agent system for sheet metal manufacturability. An engineer uploads a CAD component into a chat window and a supervisor orchestrates the agents beneath it: one extracting geometry such as wall thicknesses and blank size, another running forming simulation, others handling cost and carbon once sourcing data is supplied.<blockquote>There's a supervisor which is calling and orchestrating all the agents underneath.Tilman Steininger, Synera, CDFAM Barcelona 2026</blockquote>The output is not a verdict but a location. If a component cannot be made, the system returns images showing where the problem is, and the engineer goes back into CATIA to resolve it. That loop, rather than any individual model, is the product.<h2>Architecture</h2>Architecture and structural engineering produced the year's most concrete demonstrations, possibly because the work is so heavily gated by specialist availability. At CD/DC in Washington, Sergey Pigach of CORE studio showed an agentic system his firm runs on AWS and interacts with through Slack. Ask it, in a sentence, for a concrete column stack and footing for a five-storey residential building in New York and let it make the remaining assumptions, and it calls the same tools the firm's engineers use, renders the column and writes a design summary.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TqKjZU0UfT0?&amp;t=189s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">         </iframe>His framing of why it works is the sharpest line anyone offered on the subject.<blockquote>It's not a domain expertise problem. It's really an unhobbling problem.Sergey Pigach, CORE studio | Thornton Tomasetti, CDFAM Washington DC 2026</blockquote>Frontier models, on his evidence, are already competent at engineering work. What they lack is a way to reach the tools. Pigach also noted something easy to overlook: the agent lives in Slack deliberately, because putting it in a shared space where people already work changes the relationship compared with sitting down in front of a chatbot.Matthew Goldsberry and Junling Zhuang of HDR gave the practitioner's counterweight at NYC 2025, opening by locating themselves precisely: from the trenches of trying to use these tools in an architecture firm. Their term for it, form jamming, describes assembling AI coding tools and image generation into something usable per project, and their conclusion was that the framework matters more than any finished pipeline.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fv6yCKngCe0?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">       </iframe>At Barcelona, Augmenta described full automation of mechanical, electrical and plumbing design as fully agentic, compressing MEP work from weeks to days, while noting plainly that there is a long way still to go.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tmgj-DoGXHQ?&amp;t=784s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">      </iframe><h2>Industrial design</h2>The consumer-facing end of the field has been slower to use the word and quicker to build the constraints agents will eventually need. Ruben Verhack of Datameister put the problem precisely at Amsterdam in 2025. Industrial design is governed by hard points: fixed locations, dimensions and rules that cannot move without major consequence, whether that is where a car's engine and occupants sit or where the batteries and cooling zones fall in a consumer device.<blockquote>You don't want to be creative on these things.Ruben Verhack, Datameister, CDFAM Amsterdam 2025</blockquote><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zoSI979fcjw?&amp;t=165s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">     </iframe>General-purpose visual AI generates from the surface inward, he argued, while design works from the inside out, and the last twenty percent is always where it breaks. His team's answer was to constrain generation to geometry already known to be manufacturable, so an exterior can be explored freely around components that are fixed. Laurence Cook of Generative Engineering made a parallel case at Barcelona for splitting a simulation pipeline apart, so stress, impact displacement and manufacturing cost can be explored alongside a designer working in the language of form.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-RjobfZM634?&amp;t=757s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">    </iframe><h2>What has to exist underneath</h2>The most structural claim came from Intact Solutions at CD/DC. Today's tools, they argued, give you a co-pilot sitting inside an application. What replaces it is a set of agents standing in for domain and subject-matter experts, talking to each other, over what has to be a robust callable physics infrastructure underneath. Without that layer there is nothing for an agent to call, and the demonstration collapses into text generation about engineering rather than engineering.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cwEyKEsIIQ0?&amp;t=513s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">   </iframe>That is also why the sceptical voices this year have been so precise. SimScale's Andrew Acuff opened his CD/DC talk by renaming it: the programme said agentic workflows were reshaping simulation-driven product development, and he told the room he preferred accelerating, because the iterative loop between design and simulation is worth keeping. What he wanted gone was the waiting.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mr3H905ePsg?&amp;t=55s&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" class="fr-draggable">  </iframe>Read across four years, that is the actual shape of the change. Not the arrival of autonomous design, which nobody credible is claiming, but the steady disappearance of the queue.<h2>Hear it from the people building it</h2>Every talk quoted here is in the CDFAM presentation index, along with transcripts of every other recorded presentation from the symposium series. Search by speaker, company or topic, or search what was said to find the moment itself. Every result links to the exact second of the recording.<a href="https://cdfam.com/presentation-index/" target="_blank">Explore the CDFAM presentation index</a><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1789145485842-SearchforspecifictermsatCDFAM-ezgif.com-video-to-gif-converter.gif" style="width:100%px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" />

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