food inspection

I'm an mechanical engineer by training and I used to spend hundreds of hours simulating load on virtual mechanical parts using finite element analysis. It was great I could try various permutations of length, width, tapers etc to optimize the load bearing capacity of the part and minimize the amount of material needed. I didn't have to build 50 different parts and test them in a lab. I learned many things in the simulations and after a while I intuitively knew where to start and was able to optimize the parts in 2 or 3 passes.