This report, undertaken at the request of the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA), will provide an estimation and analysis of the employment and economic contribution of the supplier-related jobs in all of the fifty states and the District of Columbia.
A great deal of public discussion has focused on petroleum use and greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. An inevitable response has been to call upon automakers to produce higher-mileage vehicles. Many policymakers have suggested regulations to spur more fuel efficient designs. But little effort has been made to explain to policymakers and the public the intricate decision-making process entailed in changing vehicle designs or adjusting product plans to meet new needs.
The new business forces acting on the industry are challenging traditional beliefs, and only those capable of adaption will survive.
The purpose of this study is to conduct a preliminary investigation into the future business potential for automotive electronics, particularly for general Taiwanese companies. Although many Taiwanese companies are targeting China as a growth opportunity, our preliminary investigation was based on North America with the understanding that a more targeted investigation for China could be a future investigation. We recognized that the North American perspective would provide significant input, even to the Chinese market, because many of the auto companies and supplier’s practices and projections are easy to generalize from since they are global.
The following report describes the current state of the art in vehicle recycling by focusing on operations that affect the recycling of copper. For this purpose, selected dismantlers and shredding companies were visited and representatives from industry organizations were interviewed. Selected OEMs have also been interviewed to better understand the impact of regulations on their vehicle design and on their research focus.
The Center for Automotive Research has undertaken the CAR-Microsoft Program on Automotive Industry Practices. The program is a four-year research effort consisting of indepth, focused interviews with industry participants on subjects of importance to all industry stakeholders. The intent of this paper is to investigate how different companies have adapted their product development processes to the changing competitive climate and how they utilize new technologies (e.g., weblogs, internet chat rooms, and other such digital communications) to transform their vision into products. The focus is not on the tools or the specific strategies, but rather on the information channels product design teams use for inspiration and understanding the market and on how the product design teams work together to create “cool” products.
This study was sponsored by Microsoft Corporation.
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.
Automotive companies are trying to buy their tools, dies, and molds (TDM) at the lowest possible price. With the recent emergence of tooling capacity in “low-cost countries” (LCCs), that low price is getting even lower. Domestic TDM sources are being pressed to meet the “world price” for tools or risk losing their bids to suppliers who can provide TDM at this lower price. This paper examines how this new environment affects domestic TDM builders. This paper is the result of a nine-month study made possible by the generous support of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.