Vitalii Vlakh is a mechanical design and CAD/CAM automation engineer whose career joins hands-on machine and product design with research on production machinery and the development of the engineering software that supports it. Over more than a decade he has worked across the automotive, furniture, sheet-metal, and packaging-machinery industries in Ukraine and North America, consistently moving from a practical problem to an engineered solution — and, where useful, to a program that automates it.
He studied at the Ukrainian Academy of Printing in Lviv, earning a bachelor’s (2008–2012) and a master’s (2012–2013) degree in mechanical engineering and then a Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences (2014–2018). His dissertation, Improvement of a die-cutting press using the combination of the drive mechanisms of a pressure plate, is documented in the National Repository of Academic Texts; the Ukrainian Academy of Printing also provides the author’s abstract (PDF). During his doctoral research he was awarded an Academic Scholarship of the President of Ukraine — one of only about thirty postgraduate students recognised nationwide that year — for work on the drive mechanisms of packaging and printing machinery, built on analytical models in Mathcad, 3D design in SolidWorks, and his own calculation software.
His engineering career began in 2013 at Stryi Auto, a bus-assembly plant, where he created SolidWorks models and AutoCAD drawings, digitised legacy documentation, and contributed to the development of the Karpaty A102 tourist bus — designing headlights, luggage compartments, interior parts, doors, and handrails — while writing Delphi and AutoLISP programs for strength calculations that were reported as still in use in production. He then joined the furniture manufacturer VTPP Style (2016–2017), where he introduced full 3D modelling at the design stage, established AutoCAD templates and internal standards that remain in use, and wrote AutoLISP tools for structural calculations, raising the design team’s output.
As Chief Design Engineer and Production Department Manager at Termoplast Plus (2017–2019) he managed three workshops and a team of about twenty, engineered sheet-metal, steel-pipe, and wooden products, prepared CNC programs in TruTops Boost and Mach3, and expanded the workshop with punching, bending, and plasma-cutting equipment to enable three-shift production. From 2018 he worked independently for clients in Ukraine, the United States, and Canada — designing doors, stairs, curtain-wall and elevation panels, LED screens, and Arduino-based electronics — and from 2018 to 2023 served as an external design expert for VTPP Style, assessing the quality of design and technological documentation and creating CNC programs and production technologies.
From April to December 2022 he worked at Sokil LLC as an Engineer of Mechanization and Automation of Production Processes, developing and installing mineral-water vending systems with sensor-based pressure and flow control, UV filtration, precision dosing, cashless payments, remote monitoring, self-diagnostics, and automated accounting and reporting, and training technical staff.
In parallel, from 2014 to 2024 he carried out research at the Ukrainian Academy of Printing on the drive mechanisms of flat die-cutting presses — the machines that cut, crease, and emboss cardboard packaging. He invented mechanisms that reduce pressure-plate oscillation, distribute the cutting load more evenly, and improve cut quality; built mathematical models and software for automated kinematic and dynamic calculation; and validated the designs through virtual experiments in SolidWorks and physical tests. This work produced a body of peer-reviewed publications, including Scopus-indexed articles, and a series of patented technical solutions later cited as prototype technology.
After relocating to Canada he completed the Engineering Connections Program at Humber College (2024) and joined Preference North America as an Engineering Service Specialist, where he automates modelling in Pref Suite, generates manufacturing-ready drawings and IFC/BIM and Revit data from model and SQL sources, and builds Visual Basic, AutoLISP, Python, and CLIPS-based automation. Alongside this role he founded DXNest (dxnest.io), a commercial CAD/CAM platform for automated production preparation in sheet-metal and facade fabrication, which he architected and develops, and which is registered with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (Copyright No. 1238472, 2025).
His work has been recognised through competitions and honours. In 2015 he won a first-degree diploma in the international Autodesk youth design competition “Shape the Future!” for a cloud service built on the Autodesk AutoCAD I/O API, and in 2013 he won the national scientific competition “Youth and Printing.” He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and an Autodesk Certified Professional (AutoCAD 2015), and he has continued his professional development through the UCU Business School (2022), the Nova Post Business School (2023), and innovation and project-commercialisation training with Autodesk CIS and Skolkovo (2015). In total he is the author of 11 issued Ukrainian patents, 6 Ukrainian software copyright certificates, and 1 Canadian software copyright.
Selected press & interviews
His research and engineering work have been featured in the specialised trade press:
- “Modern printing engineering: improving die-cutting presses” — Print Plus magazine, 2025. English version · Ukrainian version · Lviv Polytechnic article
- “From mechanism calculations to innovations in packaging technology” — Upakovka (Packaging) magazine, 2025. Website article · Magazine article
The full record is available on the Publications, Patents & certificates, and Projects pages.