The Koddex Journal

The Hardware Engineering Brief

62 articles on the craft, tools, and future of building complex physical systems.

Koddex on stage at The Square, EuraTechnologies

Defense/Jul 20, 2026

The BITD "Stress Test": Would Your Engineering Survive a Wartime Production Ramp-Up?

At Eurosatory 2026, France put its defense manufacturers through a wartime "stress test." The debate fixated on machines, buildings, and materials, but the quieter bottleneck is engineering data. Here is why configuration management and requirements traceability decide whether a ramp-up is fast or dangerous.

Thomas Aubert·10 min

Regulations/Jul 19, 2026

AI Act "Omnibus": Industrial AI Leaves the Scope, but Traceability Stays Your Problem

The May 2026 Digital Omnibus deal pulls industrial AI out of the AI Act's direct scope and pushes high-risk deadlines to late 2027. For hardware makers, this is not relief: the traceability requirement did not disappear, it moved to sector regimes that make structured engineering data more urgent, not less.

Thomas Aubert·10 min

Regulations/Jul 18, 2026

MDR/IVDR revision: "simplification" will not save manufacturers whose documentation is scattered

The European Commission's targeted MDR/IVDR revision promises a simpler, more predictable framework. But it will redistribute the regulatory burden, not reduce it, and manufacturers whose technical documentation lives in an archipelago of files will be the losers of that redistribution.

Thomas Aubert·10 min

Regulations/Jul 17, 2026

Machinery Regulation 2023/1230: T-6 Months, the Countdown to the Digital Technical File

On January 20, 2027, Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 replaces the twenty-year-old Machinery Directive. Six months out, every manufacturer must bring its organization, documentation, and products into compliance. The real question is not whether your documents are updated, but whether your documentation can live at the pace of your products.

Thomas Aubert·10 min

Regulations/Jul 16, 2026

Digital product passport: stop treating it as an ESG topic, it's an engineering data problem

In February 2027, the EU Battery Regulation makes the digital product passport mandatory for batteries above 2 kWh. Most manufacturers frame it as an ESG reporting exercise. That diagnosis is wrong and expensive: the DPP is an engineering data problem, and it can only be solved at the engineering level.

Thomas Aubert·10 min

Industry Trends/Jul 15, 2026

EPR2, SMR: in new nuclear, certification is the critical path

In the new nuclear industry, the race is not won on neutronics, thermal-hydraulics, or financing. It is won on certification, and certification is above all a data engineering problem. Why the safety case is a living system, and why the certification repository is the structural advantage of new entrants.

Thomas Aubert·11 min

Robotics/Jul 14, 2026

Humanoid Robots: The Invisible Wall Between Pilot and Series Production

In 2026 humanoid robots stopped being demos and became industrial projects. Everyone is watching production cost and supply chain, but there is a less visible wall where robotics scale-ups crash with remarkable regularity: configuration management. Here is why it decides who moves from pilot to series.

Thomas Aubert·10 min

Regulations/Jul 13, 2026

The Digital Product Passport Is Not an ESG Project. It Is an Engineering Data Problem.

How the EU's DPP mandate exposes the gap between fragmented engineering records and what regulators will actually ask for, starting 18 February 2027. Carbon footprint is one field among ninety. The rest lives in your requirements tool, your BOM, and your certification binders.

Thomas Aubert·11 min

Industry Trends/Jul 12, 2026

Mistral x Airbus: AI in engineering will never be better than your data

Sovereign models are now abundant, capable, and European. The real question is not which model to pick, but what you connect it to. In regulated engineering, garbage in, garbage out applies with redoubled force: AI will never be better than the engineering data you feed it.

Thomas Aubert·10 min

Defense/Jul 11, 2026

Drones: when the design cycle drops from ten years to ten months, traceability becomes the limiting factor

10 min

Aerospace/Jul 10, 2026

Aerospace ramp-up: engineering data is the weak link in the supply chain

The Hardware Engineering Brief

The BITD "Stress Test": Would Your Engineering Survive a Wartime Production Ramp-Up?

AI Act "Omnibus": Industrial AI Leaves the Scope, but Traceability Stays Your Problem

MDR/IVDR revision: "simplification" will not save manufacturers whose documentation is scattered

Machinery Regulation 2023/1230: T-6 Months, the Countdown to the Digital Technical File

Digital product passport: stop treating it as an ESG topic, it's an engineering data problem

EPR2, SMR: in new nuclear, certification is the critical path

Humanoid Robots: The Invisible Wall Between Pilot and Series Production

The Digital Product Passport Is Not an ESG Project. It Is an Engineering Data Problem.

Mistral x Airbus: AI in engineering will never be better than your data

Drones: when the design cycle drops from ten years to ten months, traceability becomes the limiting factor

Aerospace ramp-up: engineering data is the weak link in the supply chain

Hardware Engineer Still Running on Excel, Google Drive and Notion? Here Is Why It Does Not Scale

Koddex Is Joining The Square: EuraTechnologies Selects Us for Its First Accelerator Cohort

Discipline Is Not a Constraint. It Is the Infrastructure of Performance.

AI Agents in Complex Engineering Systems: Why Data Structure Decides Everything

Engineering OS: Why Regulated Hardware Needs Its Own Operating System

Our Tech for Industry Keynote Is Online: The Engineering Operating System, Discipline as a Driver of Performance

Koddex at the Tech for Industry Show 4.0: Meet Us at Booth V13

Mistral AI's Industrial Pivot, and Why "AI Engineering" Needs an Engineering Operating System

Carbon Accounting in High-Tech Manufacturing: Why the Data Problem Comes First

Engineering Traceability Software: the New Spine of Certification

Agile PLM for Hardware: How Modern Teams Stop Picking Between Speed and Rigor

Why Every Hardware Team Needs an Engineering Backbone (and What That Actually Means)

There Is Finally Software Built for Engineers (Not Adapted from Project Management)

Leaving heavy-weight PLM systems: the Modern PLM Alternative Playbook

When Requirements Management Stops Being Enough: from requirements management to an Engineering OS

ISO 8373: Your Robot's Classification Determines Its Regulatory Fate

Scaling the Physical World: Why Hardware Engineering is the New Frontier for 2026

The High Cost of Internal Indecision: Why Hardware Teams Fail to Scale in 2026

Hardware Handoff: Why Your Integrators and Distributors Need Graph Access, Not PDFs

Cyber Resilience Act 2027: The Hardware Compliance Wall Most Teams Are Underestimating

Robotics Certifications 2026: ISO 10218 Update, EN ISO 13482, and the New Collaborative Stack

MedTech 2026: How FDA QMSR Convergence and EU MDR Audits Are Reshaping Hardware Traceability

Koddex Beyond R&D: Why Hardware Fleet Management Belongs in the Engineering Graph

Why Hardware CSM Teams Need Ticketing Tied to the Engineering Graph

The Certification Stack That Now Defines Hardware in 2026

The 14 Hours: How Hardware Engineers Lose Half Their Week to Tracing Their Own Work

Digital Twins for SMR: The Hidden Engineering Backbone of the Next Reactor Wave

MBSE in France: Where Adoption Is Real and Where It Is Still Theatre

Hardware Engineering vs. the Tooling Wall: The Problem and a Structural Solution

DO-178C and DO-254: Why Aerospace Certification Is Becoming Unworkable Without a Connected Baseline

MCP & AI Agents in Hardware Engineering: Automating Without Breaking Your Processes

The Rise of Deterministic Engineering: Why 2026 Is the Tipping Point

European Machinery Regulation 2027: What Hardware Teams Must Prepare Now

The 12 Must-Attend Hardware Engineering Events in France: 2026 Calendar

The Hardware-Firmware Co-Design Revolution: Breaking Down the Last Silo

French Defense Hardware Modernization: The €413B Opportunity for Engineers

Surgical Robotics in 2026: The Hardware Challenges No One Talks About

Implementing the Digital Thread in Aerospace: Lessons from the Field

Humanoid Robotics: The Final Frontier of Hardware Engineering

ISO 26262 Hardware Metrics Demystified: A Practical Guide for Design Engineers

PCB Design in 2026: HDI, Embedded Components, and the Death of Simple Boards

The V-Model Is Not Dead. It Has Evolved. Here's What It Looks Like in 2026

The BOM Complexity Crisis: Why Your Bill of Materials Is a Ticking Time Bomb

Wind Energy's Hardware Engineering Boom: Opportunities in Next-Gen Turbine Systems

Configuration Management for Hardware Teams: Beyond the Paper Trail

Autonomous Vehicle Hardware Safety Architecture: Lessons from SOTIF and ISO 21448

The Hardware Engineer's Career in 2026: New Roles, New Skills, New Paths

Edge Computing Hardware for Industrial IoT: Designing for the Factory Floor

The Systems Engineering Renaissance: Why Hardware Teams Are Rediscovering SE Fundamentals

NewSpace Manufacturing: How Satellite Constellations Are Rewriting Hardware Production Rules

Digital Twins for Hardware: Separating Hype from Engineering Reality