Low-Volume Vehicle Production

Many auto companies are targeting low-volume vehicles as a means to increase market share and, in some cases, to establish a “halo effect” with niche products. Engineering and production resource availability, and manufacturing cost are two critical constraints present in low-volume products.

Sponsored by: American Plastics Council; ASC, Inc.; Dana Corporation; Diversified Tooling Company; KUKA; Flexible Production Systems; McKinsey Consulting; TATA Consulting and United Tooling Coalition.

Virtual Functional Build for Body Assembly

Functional build (FB) is a critical process in launching a vehicle, whereby individual prototype parts are stamped and then sent to a central location to be assembled into a prototype vehicle body.

Proceeding of IMECE2005, 2005 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition.

Automotive Product Design & Development Delphi

This Delphi report describes the North American auto industry’s perspective on the current and future state of various issues surrounding the product design process and its impact on product design success.

This study sponsored by Parametric Technologies Corporation

Developing a National Strategy for High-Volume Manufacture of P.E.M. and Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Workshop

This report presents the results of a workshop sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that took place on December 8, 2003, in Dearborn, Michigan. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together a broad national audience to identify critical manufacturing issues associated with the high volume production of fuel cells and to explore the development of a national strategy for fuel cell manufacturability (NSFCM).

The Digital Body Development System

The Digital Body Development System (DBDS) is a $10.6 million 4 year NIST ATP project to shorten the time to launch vehicles by improving the launch problem solving process.

A Collaborative Model for the Tool and Die Industry

Many tool and die makers have gone bankrupt during the first years of the new millennia. This study was commissioned to better understand the underlying causes for the demise of these shops.

This report was sponsored by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Applying Distributed Adaptive Optimization to Digital Car Body Development

Companies in today’s automotive industry are under immense competitive pressure to reduce the length of their product development cycle from initial concept to begin of high-volume manufacturing.

From the publication: Engineering Self-Organizing Systems: Methodologies and Applications