Norbert Lotter
I've spent 30 years in PLM and engineering data management, the last several building the AI-native tooling this blog writes about.
I've been at PROSTEP — a PLM (product lifecycle management) software and engineering-services company — since 1994: as a PhD researcher, systems analyst, subsidiary managing director, and business unit lead. I hold a PhD in Computer Science from FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, with a dissertation on system integration in the automotive industry.
Along the way I've conceived and led a string of successful software projects in the aerospace and automotive industry. I designed and built OpenDXM GlobalX, PROSTEP's secure data-exchange platform, from its 2004 relaunch to production use at roughly 50 companies worldwide, including leading international automotive OEMs and suppliers. Since 2010 I've led the projects that grew PROSTEP into an established PLM development partner for a major German OEM: a SAT-solver-based validator that catches invalid variant bills of materials before they reach production, a multi-user application that replaced Excel for early-phase vehicle configuration, and finally the CAD-data migration to Dassault's 3DExperience running alongside the OEM's decades-old legacy system.
Today I architect the PROSTEP AI Workbench (PatternEngine, the APL compiler, the KnowledgeLayer) and developed AI-Native Development (AIND) — the specification-first methodology behind a lot of what gets written up here. I authored the MADWYN whitepaper (PROSTEP AG, 2025) and was interviewed by Handelsblatt on industrial AI (2025). I'm also co-holder of US Patent 11,314,847 B2, which deals with using blockchain technology in licensing 3D printing files — so much for hypes.
My 50 Tokens is where I write about AI topics — AIND and its pattern-execution library pexlib among them — the way I'd want them explained: grounded, and without the hype.