2026 Keynote
Jyoti Malhotra | NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership
Keynote information TBA
ASME MBE Standards Committee
Evan Kessick | Elysium
Blake Gorowsky | Pratt & Whitney
The ASME Model-Based Standards Update highlights ongoing efforts to modernize standards for model-based activities. The MBE and Y14 Harmonization committee focus on supporting Model-Based Definition (MBD) adoption, and the MBE Committee is focused on improving the exchange of model-based data across the enterprise. This discussion covers the committees’ progress and emphasizes engagement for maximizing model-based investments.
MTConnect
Will Sobel & Matt McCormick | MTConnect Institute
We will begin with an overview of the MTConnect standards, a brief discussion of model-based standards, and a discussion of what’s new since last year. Matt will provide an intro to the MTConnect/AMT testbed in collaboration with NVIDIA and the OpenUSD standard. The platform allows for the simulation of manufacturing systems, and, by working with machine tool vendors, the aim is to have plugable assets that can be composed to provide existing or proposed manufacturing systems.
DMSC: Impacting the Digital Thread with Quality
Curtis Brown | DMSC
The Dimensional Metrology Standards Consortium (DMSC) is a non-profit, ANSI-accredited standards organization focused on advancing digital metrology through open, interoperable standards. Founded in 1983 and established as an independent legal entity in 2005, the DMSC serves a global membership of manufacturing metrologists, software developers, and technology innovators.
The DMSC is the maintainer of the Dimensional Measuring Interface Standard (DMIS), the developer and maintainer of the Quality Information Framework (QIF), and the developer of the emerging Model-Based Characteristics (MBC) standard. This presentation provides an overview of the DMSC and its standards portfolio, with updates on DMIS, QIF, and MBC, and explains how these standards work together to support interoperability and connectivity across the digital thread.
What’s Up with STEP
Allison Barnard | PDES, Inc.
If you are curious about what new capabilities were published in STEP AP242 Edition 4, or what is under development for Edition 5, tune in for a brief update! If you want to know how to get involved, listen up! There are many opportunities to join in the fun
How SAE Is Supporting the MBE Community
Leslie McKay | SAE International
SAE International has been leading several initiatives around the development and distribution of digital standards. This session will highlight how SAE is supporting the mobility industry as our customers strive to digitally transform their organizations.
QIF Beyond FAI:
Connecting Model-Based Data to DFMEA, Control Plans, and Production Quality Processes
Ron Trout | Net-Inspect
Most QIF implementations in quality systems stop at First Article Inspection. This session explores how aerospace manufacturers can use QIF as a digital thread leveraging MBD/MBE to the broader quality framework, including FMEA, control plans, inspection plans, and supply chain workflows, improving accuracy, efficiency, and traceability across manufacturing operations and suppliers.
A New Framework for MBE Decision-Making
Chad Jackson | Lifecycle Insights
Leading an MBD/MBE initiative? The biggest barriers aren’t technical—they’re political. Drawing on new winter 2026 adoption research and a multi-track maturity model, this session gives change agents concrete strategies for managing executive expectations, reading cross-functional resistance, and moving skeptical stakeholders from obstruction to ownership
Model-Based Quality Assurance:
A Key Enabler to Scale and Speed
Bill Bernstein | Air Force Research Laboratory
Recent conflicts underscore a critical need to fortify our industrial base, enabling it to rapidly escalate production. AFRL is spearheading an initiative to align science and technology programs aiming to achieve affordable mass in preparation for surge. This presentation will expand on these plans, focusing on Model-Based Quality Assurance.
Practical MBE: Standards, Maturity, and Impact
Ben Hopper | NCC
This session explores MBE challenges revealed through the IMPACT programme and shows how the new MBE Handbook and UK Industrial User Group turn those lessons into practical guidance. By linking standards, maturity assessment and project experience in practice, it highlights how organisations can overcome adoption barriers with clarity and confidence.
Historical MTConnect for Supply Chain Propogation
Trais McAllister | True Analytics Manufacturing Solutions
This presentation explores how historical MTConnect data can be leveraged to propagate machine-level production information across supply chain systems. It outlines architectures and standards enabling traceable, interoperable data exchange, supporting digital thread initiatives and improving visibility, analytics, and decision-making across distributed manufacturing networks.
Model-Based Definition Maturity Model Framework
Ryan Bounds & Mark Debbink | HII-Newport News Shipbuilding
This presentation describes an MBD Maturity Model developed by the MBD Architect Team to evaluate program health and standardize infrastructure. The framework hierarchically assesses Program MBD Maturity, Dataset Maturity, Component Fidelity levels, and industry manufacturing standards application, supporting digital design, manufacturing, supplier integration, and lifecycle decision-making.
The Hidden Cost of Using Analog Documents—
and How MBPD Pays It Back
Andrew Bank | Exiger
Analog documents and drawings are the quiet supervillain of modern engineering: “dead text” PDFs, scanned specs, copy-pasted requirements, indecipherable notes on legacy drawings, and manually interpreted constraints. It doesn’t just slow work, it becomes a systemic bottleneck that keeps otherwise-solid Model-Based Enterprise (MBE) programs from reaching full speed or delivering full ROI. The hidden tax of using analog documents and drawings cascades far beyond engineering and manufacturing into quality, testing, procurement, supply chain, and sustainment – driving rework, supplier misinterpretation, longer change cycles, and avoidable compliance/readiness risk across the digital thread.
This talk makes the case for a pragmatic and profitable fix: convert analog definition data into true Model-Based Product Definition (MBPD) – machine-readable requirements, product attributes, constraints, and standards – so downstream teams and systems can act on it. Solve it once upstream, and the payoff compounds end-to-end.
Attendees will leave with a clear mental model of (1) where analog data costs hide, (2) what “complete” MBPD really requires, and (3) how organizations build a credible business case using conservative assumptions and measurable operational KPIs.
From MBD to Production:
A Standards-Driven, Model-Based Path to Digital Validation and Traceability
Ben Urick | nVariate, Inc.
Variations between nominal and manufactured forms can significantly affect cost, quality, and schedule, yet capturing differences in a consistent and interoperable way remains a major barrier to a reliable digital thread. This work presents a CAD neutral software environment utilizing STEP AP242, QIF, MTConnect, and SysML that bridges model based definitions and actual as built conditions by generating digital twin models from as-executed and as-inspected data.
Achieving Success with NSE MBE Maturity Index
George Rendell | Siemens Digital Industries Software
Chris Kulinka | Belcan, A Cognizant Company
Session will use the NSE MBE Maturity Index as the achievement milestone, and offer insights as to what customer process and software capabilities assessment today to enable to engineering and manufacturing to achieve a targeted Level the Maturity Index. And suggestions for moving the next targeted level in the Maturity Index.
Model-Based Design Implementation
Blake Gorowsky | Pratt & Whitney
A case study investigating how model-based definition affects mechanical engineering workflows across system, design, manufacturing, inspection, risk, and analysis processes. How the digital thread implementation can improve traceability, efficiency and enhance design intent or create interoperability and process challenges – including summarized lessons learned and recommended implementation strategies.
Automized Model-Based Tolerance Analysis
Miroslaw Chamera | ARIADNE Engineering AB
Shreyes N. Melkote | Georgia Institute of Technology
This presentation demonstrates the value of tolerance analysis using a customer case from Hitachi Energy Sweden. High-quality Model-Based Definition (MBD) data enabled automation of tolerance analysis integrated with 3D CAD. Properly defined geometry and tolerances support efficient product development, balancing product quality, manufacturability, and cost while enabling reliable automation.
Closing the Quality Loop Using QIF MBE with PolyWorks and MBDVidia
Larry Bergquist | Capvidia
Simon Héroux | InnovMetric
This presentation goes through an end-to-end, model-based Inspection workflow leveraging QIF to create a closed digital loop from design to measurement and back with traceability.
Requirements to Reality:
Building a Digitally Connected Supply Chain
Chris Kulinka | Belcan, A Cognizant Company
Abbey Soulek | GE Aerospace
This presentation highlights how supply chain modernization efforts and targets have been developed, gaps between MBD authoring and down-stream usage, and the challenges faced when transforming manufacturing and inspection activities. Included real-world examples showcase problems during and testimonials after process development while creating a more responsive, connected supply chain.
Extending the Capabilities of Data Element Mapping and Analysis for Advanced Manufacturing
Christian Zamiela & Allison Ledford | Auburn University
The ASME Model-Based Standards Update highlights ongoing efforts to modernize standards for model-based activities. The MBE and Y14 Harmonization committee focus on supporting Model-Based Definition (MBD) adoption, and the MBE Committee is focused on improving the exchange of model-based data across the enterprise. This discussion covers the committees’ progress and emphasizes engagement for maximizing model-based investments.
A QIF-Supported Workflow for Estimating CMM Measurement Uncertainty
Jacob Brooks | University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Estimating the uncertainty of CMM measurement results for various part characteristics
can be a challenging and time-consuming task. In many industrial situations, it is not
practical for a metrologist to conduct the many repeated measurements necessary to
make a statistically significant type A uncertainty claim. Similarly, it may not be feasible
to develop an analytical model of the measurement system detailed enough to produce
useful results. In these cases, software packages like Pundit CMM by Capvidia allow
users to estimate measurement uncertainty caused by factors such as part form error,
CMM variability, and variability in the ambient environment.
This research aims to develop a QIF-supported workflow which gathers sufficient input
information for Pundit CMM to provide a realistic estimate of measurement uncertainty.
These estimates will be compared with real-world measurement studies to highlight
both the strengths and limitations of each method and to provide metrologists with real-
world insight into how to improve their quality control processes.
Model-Based Quality: Secure, Interoperable Data Flow
Albert Ismailov | OUSW (R&E), SE&A Spc. Engineering Directorate
Brent Lewis
The ASME Model-Based Standards Update highlights ongoing efforts to modernize standards for model-based activities. The MBE and Y14 Harmonization committee focus on supporting Model-Based Definition (MBD) adoption, and the MBE Committee is focused on improving the exchange of model-based data across the enterprise. This discussion covers the committees’ progress and emphasizes engagement for maximizing model-based investments.
Solving for the Hidden Bottleneck in Model-Based Manufacturing
Zack Valdez | NEMA
As industrial systems become more connected, electrified, and digitally integrated, the electrical equipment that powers these systems—across motors, drives, transformers, switchgear, wire & cable, and industrial controls—remains one of the least standardized sources of manufacturing data. This fragmentation limits a manufacturer’s ability to fully achieve a Model-Based Enterprise (MBE), where design, production, and quality workflows rely on seamless, machine-readable data.
The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has launched a multi-year initiative to address this gap through its Advanced Manufacturing Standards Roadmap, focusing on interoperability, metadata schemas, and model-based definitions for core industrial product categories. This presentation will share early steps, roadmap priorities, and alignment opportunities with QIF, OPC UA, IEC/ISO committees, and other interoperability frameworks. We will outline findings from standards gap analysis and roadmap development, initial efforts to define common attributes for equipment performance and lifecycle data, opportunities for converting documentation into exchange-ready formats, how standardized data can reduce variability, improve quality, and strengthen digital threads, next-phase priorities for industry adoption, and the business case for manufacturers.
Standards-Based MBD Digital Threads for Product Delivery and Reporting
Sam Golan | HighQA
OEMs are increasingly producing parts and delivering supporting quality documentation directly from the Model-Based Definition (MBD). Here is an MBD workflow from design intent to part delivery including inspection planning, measurement, traceability, and reporting, showing how connected digital threads keeps design, quality results, and documentation aligned across the supply chain.
MB-DMI Collaboration: The Supply Chain, RTX Vision + Business Unit Progress
Samuel Yang | RTX
Christopher Scott | Pratt & Whitney
The future in the Aerospace and Defense (A&D) industry demands faster product delivery and increasing product capability resulting in increased complexity in product design. In addition, certain U.S. government programs require digital engineering capabilities in accordance with DoD Instruction 5000.97. RTX has been working on a multi-year Model-Based Enterprise (MBE) transformation initiative to leverage digital capabilities in which we conduct our business and provide our products and services to customers, including how we design, build, maintain our products & services, and operate our facilities. The Model-Based Definition, Manufacturing, and Inspection (MB-DMI) project focus on developing capabilities to reuse validated MBD models to enable automation in manufacturing and quality, inspection, process planning, and programming; leverage interoperable data standards to exchange data across heterogenous CAx applications and platforms; and build the feature level digital thread with semantic data connectivity across DMI domains to uncover knowledge from production data. In-house demonstrations of these new digitalization capabilities have shown the value of cycle-time & cost reduction, and product quality improvement. The supply chain plays a key role in all of RTX’s product composition. Our success in this MB-DMI transformation requires close collaboration with our suppliers on this journey. Pratt & Whitney highlights lessons learned with MB-DMI deployments from pilots to full program execution while leveraging industry resources such as the DoD’s Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP) to upskill and prepare small businesses for the Digital Transformation Journey. As full program execution being initiated, we offer an approach to assess and plan supplier‘s Model Based Maturity advancement with a key focus on Awareness, Capability, Readiness, and Adoption while leveraging Continuous Improvement.
Federated Learning for Secure Cyber Manufacturing Capability Matching in Defense Supply Chains
Mike Yan | OpenWerks, Inc.
Shreyes N. Melkote | Georgia Institute of Technology
Defense procurement cycles that take months of manual RFQ processes can be compressed to near-instant capability matching through Model-Based Enterprise adoption. To solve the critical trust barrier blocking this transition, we developed a federated learning approach that securely matches 3D part definitions to supplier manufacturing capabilities without exposing proprietary datasets.
Closing the Gaps:
Unifying Standards for Enterprise-Ready MBD
Atsuto Soma & Evan Kessick | Elysium
Closing the Gaps explores the shift to enterprise-ready Model-Based Definition, emphasizing early, comprehensive quality checking across all MBD elements. It highlights gaps beyond PMI standards and calls for cross-industry collaboration to unify practices, ensuring interoperable, trusted, and reusable digital product data across the full enterprise digital thread lifecycle-wide manufacturing ecosystems.
Model-Based Standard Validation
Will Sobel | AMT-MTConnect
Implementors of standards often misinterpret the standard’s intentions, leading to interoperability problems that the standard intended to solve. Machine tool builders using MTConnect standards without use the same terms and structure for components and data items may result in applications misinterpreting the data and failing to correctly identify manufacturing problems. Moving to a model-based, machine-readable standard is a good first step toward improving the standard’s usability. A model-based standard needs to provide its model in some language, and the MTConnect Institute chose SysML as its modeling language. But SysML allows one to express entities (blocks), their properties, and their relationships but does not provide an easy way to validate anything beyond data types, properties, and relationship cardinality. To address these challenges, we decided to translate the SysML model into OWL to leverage a broader set of tools. The SysML-to-OWL conversion process can be broken down into four key stages: extract, translate, enrich, and validate. The W3C has a standard called SHACL (Shape Constraint Language) designed for validating data graphs. MTConnect serializes its model in XMI, the exchange standard for UML and SysML, but XMI has limited open-source tools for working with the model in serialized form. The MTConnect Institute is moving its validation away from UML’s OCL (Object Constraint Language) because there are no easy-to-use open-source implementations, and writing OCL is very complex. The one issue with SHACL is that we need to convert our SysML model into an equivalent OWL representation and then validate the derived graph. This talk will cover the process of projecting a SysML model into an OWL ontology, model validation concerns, the differences between a simple information model represented as an ontology and a rigorous ontology like the Industrial Ontology Foundry, and the additional value an ontology can provide. The MTConnect Institute is creating open-source tools to help other standards and organizations with similar concerns convert their models and offer more value to their users.
Advancing Manufacturing Readiness Through Model-Based Engineering Training: A National Prototype
James Brino & Dr. Amy Thompson
Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, Inc.
This presentation, Advancing Manufacturing Readiness through Model-Based Engineering Training: A National Prototype, showcases how CCAT built a national training program prototype advancing MBE and MBD across the defense industrial base. Learn how immersive, role-based training and industry collaboration are accelerating digital thread adoption, strengthening workforce capabilities, and helping manufacturers meet evolving Department of War and OEM expectations for modern, data-driven product development and production.
Digital Standards & Specifications Built on QIF Rules
Daniel Campbell | Rubypoint
Evan Frank | GE Aerospace
Kevin Braun | John Deere
Engineering specifications remain largely trapped in text-heavy PDFs, limiting traceability in Model-Based Enterprise workflows. This presentation demonstrates a QIF Rules–based method for transforming specifications into machine-interpretable XML. A rule-guided parsing engine automatically extracts and applies product characteristics, improving consistency, reducing manual interpretation, and enabling auditable digital traceability across engineering specifications.