According to the father of the bell curve, Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss, variation is to be expected within the range of what is considered normal. Engineers who fail to account for manufacturing variation can make products that don't meet specifications. Problems might include high amounts of scrap and variations in the operating performance of the manufactured product. Nonlinear analyses for evaluating complex manufacturing processes such as material forming became feasible only with the advent of high-performance computing (HPC). HPC involves supercomputers and computer clusters that solve advanced computation problems. When building FEA models to simulate nonlinear behavior, engineers can modify geometry and materials, by hand, to improve performance. When building FEA models to simulate nonlinear behavior, engineers can modify geometry and materials, by hand, to improve performance. Optimized simulation can even be applied beyond product design to improve manufacturing. Material data, machine set points, and proximity sensor data can be considered as design variables for simulating machine tools.