Auto Focus Asia

ISSUE 4

2008

ÂŁ12

â‚Ź18

$25

Rs.300

w w w . a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

3D caid

Matrix infrared sensor system

rfid

on-board systems

Management | Information Technology | Materials | Engine and Chassis | Electrical and Electronics | Production w w w .and a u t Manufacturing ofocusasia.com

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

Foreword Carmakers’ rendezvous with big screen

M

ovies always fascinate us. The larger than life portrayal of normal people has captivated audience over the years and secured a special place among the global populace. As common audience, all of us aspire to be a part of the extravaganza in our own way—imitating actors’ mannerisms, procuring gadgets or brands used by them or showcased in the movies, etc. Such behaviour cuts across continents and has paved way for innumerable consumer brands to use movies as effective means to market their products.

Car manufacturers’ alliance with movies dates back to 1930s when Buick signed a 10-picture deal with Warner Brothers for Gold Diggers. Though a good number of car placement deals followed suit, it was the James Bond franchise that gave new fillip to this trend. Car companies vying with each other to be a part of the 007 movies speaks of the impact the British Spy’s films have had over the popular psyche.

The motive behind car placements can range from creating pre-launch hype to brand building to showcasing brand’s strengths. A large number of such placements are usually barter deals where car manufacturers promote the movie along with their brands in return for placing their products. But there have been instances where car manufacturers have spent millions of dollars for placing their brands or promoting the film release or manufacturing cars explicitly for a film. For instance, Audi designed RSQ sports car for the movie I, Robot indicating that the brand has technology for the future.

In fact, Audi claimed that its placement exercise was a huge success and attracted millions of eyeballs across the globe.

It’s surprising to note that carmakers prefer to feature their brands in movies despite the fact that they don’t have any say in the plot of the movie or in the scene in which their brands are shown. Further, there is no guarantee on the fate of the film and there is no effective tool that can measure the return on the investment.

Still, car companies believe that movies offer great potential for marketing their brands. A number of big car manufacturers have now started to focus on film markets in Asia for such placements. Our cover story discusses how carmakers use movies to market their products, and features interviews from Dirk Roeder of Audi and Bob Witter of Ford.

The other stories feature important aspects touching automotive industry such as German car manufacturers’ battle for supremacy in the Indian luxury car segment, customer obsession approach for improved interiors, recent advances in engine downsizing technologies and the growing wireless connectivity and voice-based interaction in cars. Further, Leonid Dolgov, Head of GAZ Group’s Passenger Car Division, shares with us his views on the growing car market and business climate in Russia.

Vinaya Kumar Mylavarapu

Editor

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

In-film Placement Carmakers’ tryst

26

Dirk Roeder Head International Film Marketing Entertainment and Gaming Audi AG

with Hollywood

Roopna Ravindran Editorial Associate Auto Focus Asia

Bob Witter Manager Ford Global Brand Entertainment

Management

Luxury Car Market

German battle on Indian soil

Innovation Management

05

Information Technology

Hideto Murakami, Senior Vice President Research & Development Nissan Technical Centre, UK

AUTOSAR ECUs Development solutions

The race has begun Leonid Dolgov, Head Passenger Car Division GAZ Group, Russia

Leveraging People, Processes and Technology For optimal market response

11

Central and Eastern European Countries The next challenge Peter N C Cooke, KPMG Professor of Automotive Management University of Buckingham, UK

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

34

Nigel James Tracey Director - Product Management (Embedded Software) Software Product Group, ETAS, UK

Networked Virtual Environment Platform For equipment sharing systems of SMEs

36

Hamed Farahani Manesh Research Assistant Department of Mechanical Engineering Eastern Mediterranean University, Turkey

Developing Universal Standards for RFID

39

Patrick F King, Global Electronics Strategist Michelin Tyres, USA

Richard J Sherman, President Gold & Domas Research, USA

Omer Ahmed Siddiqui, Assistant Editor Pragyan Paramita Barik, Editorial Associate Auto Focus Asia

Qashqai development at Nissan

Russian Automotive 08 Industry

20

16

On-board Systems From infotainment to eDucation Carsten Leininger, Managing Director iPUBLISH GmbH, Germany

41

Contents Materials

Design and Testing

Recycled Plastics Opportunities and challenges

44

Darren F Arola, Global Director Sales and Marketing MBA Polymers, Inc., USA

3D Computer Aided 72 Industrial Design Demystifying the myths

Hybrid Structural Parts New assembly and improved performance

47

Ernst Schmachtenberg, Head, Polymer Technology

Redesigning the Product Development Process

Ahmad Al-Sheyyab, Scientific Assistant Ines Kuhnert, Head, Thermo Plastic Processing Dept.

Chair of Polymer Technology, LKT University of Erlangen-Nuremberg Germany

52

Components and Ancillaries Matrix Infrared Sensor System

Federica Fino, Specialist on innovative materials “Product Quality” Group, Interiors & HMI Department Diego Marzorati Project Manager, Vehicle Architectures Department

80

Centro Ricerche Fiat, Italy

To improve in-vehicle climate

Biagio Nicosia In charge, “Innovation and Alternative Tractions” Department IVECO, Italy

Takuya Kataoka, Project Manager Air-Conditioning, R&D Dept.

DENSO Corporation, Japan

Lightweight Metal Matrix Composites For automotive applications

57

Rainer Gadow Institut für Fertigungstechnologie keramischer Bauteile (IFKB) Germany

Lutz Leutelt, Consultant, Professional Speech Processing Siemens AG, Germany

61

64

88

Production and Manufacturing EU CO2 Outlook Meeting the challenge

90

Tom De Vleesschauwer, Associate Director Automotive Consulting, Global Insight Ltd., UK

Alex Woodrow, Director and Head of Research Knibb, Gormezano & Partners, UK

67

Sivam Sabesan, Industry Analyst, Technical Insights Automotive & Transportation, Frost & Sullivan, India

Advanced Diesel Engines Is gasoline the best fuel?

Connectivity Two-way wireless data communications Ross A Caplan, Senior Partner and Development Manager M2M & Wireless Data Solutions, Sprint Nextel, USA

Peter Miller, Director Electrical/Electronic Engineering Ricardo Ltd., UK

Advances in Engine Downsizing Technologies

85

Bernhard Kämmerer, Head, Professional Speech Processing

Impact on CO2

Global Light Vehicle Market Drivers and technology trends

Electrical and Electronics The Value of Voice Easing access to complex functionality

Engine and Chassis Chassis Control Systems

75

Mohamed El-Sayed, Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department Director, Hybrid Electric Vehicle Integration Laboratory Ketteriwng University, USA

Thomas Muller, Research Assistant

Customer Obsession Approach For high quality interiors

James Arnold Assistant Professor Industrial Design, Department of Design The Ohio State University, USA

Air Tank

69

The new hybrid battery

93

Salvatore Scuderi, President Scuderi Group LLC, USA

Gautam T Kaighatgi, Principal Scientist Fuels Technology Group, Shell Global Solutions, UK

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

Issue 4

2008

Editors Vinaya Kumar Mylavarapu Sadhu Ramakrishna

Sales Manager Rajkiran Boda

Assistant Editor Omer Ahmed Siddiqui

Sales Associates Sylas Makam Savita Devi

Consulting Editor P Sudhir

Compliance P Bhavani Prasad

Editorial Associates Roopna Ravindran Pragyan Paramita Barik

IT Support Iftakhar Mohammed Azeemuddin Mohammed Sankar Kodali Thirupathi Botla N Saritha

Language Editor G Srinivas Reddy Art Director M A Hannan Visualiser Sk Mastan Sharief Graphic Designers K Ravi Kanth Ayodhya Pendem Production Suresh Giriraj Sales Director David Chelekat GM Verticaltalk Ryan Largo Afonso Sales Head Rajeev Kumar

Advisory Board Dilip Chenoy Director General SIAM, India Dr. T S K Murthy Senior Vice President Integrated Engineering Solutions Satyam Computer Services Limited, India Tarak Balaji Director Delphi Technical Centre, India Ashok Kolaskar Advisor National Knowledge Commission, India

In association with

Chief Executive Officer : Vijay Chintamaneni Managing Director : Ashok Nair Ochre Media Private Limited Media Resource Centre, 6-3-1219/1/6, Street No. 1, Uma Nagar, Begumpet, Hyderabad - 500016, Andhra Pradesh, India Tel : +91 (0) 40 66655000 Fax : +91 (0) 40 66257633 / 66257655 Email : autofocusasia@ochre-media.com

A member of

Confederation of Indian Industry Southern Region

www.autofocusasia.com | www.ochre-media.com

Subscription Details Print* : 1 year (4 issues) for Rs. 1000 (India) and US$ 75 (Rest of world)

2 years (8 issues) for Rs. 1600 (India) and US$ 120 (Rest of world) e-Book : 1 year (4 issues) for Rs. 600 (India) and US$ 15 (Rest of world)

2 years (8 issues) for Rs. 1000 (India) and US$ 25 (Rest of world) * Print subscribers are entitled to receive e-Book free of charge for the duration of the subscription.

To subscribe, log on to www.autofocusasia.com or use the form on the reverse side of the carrier sheet. Š Ochre Media Private Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication, the publisher accepts no responsibility for errors or omissions.

The products and services advertised are not endorsed by or connected with the publisher or its associates. The editorial opinions expressed in this publication are those of individual authors and not necessarily those of the publisher or of its associates.

Copies of Auto Focus Asia can be purchased at the indicated cover prices. For bulk order reprints minimum order required is 500 copies, POA. Printed at Kala Jyothi Process Private Limited. City Office: 1-1-60/5, RTC X Roads, Hyderabad - 500 020, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

M anagement

Hideto Murakami Senior Vice President Research & Development Nissan Technical Centre UK

With increasing competition and a commitment to its three year plan, Nissan had to carefully consider how it was to deliver its next vehicle.

It needed something innovative to revitalise the brand.

Innovation Management Qashqai development at Nissan

At that time in Nissan, Almera’s (a small family car) replacement was being developed by a joint development team in both Europe and Japan technical centres.

The business trigger

T

he development of Qashqai did not follow the traditional process in many ways: from concept creation to product delivery, but finally it was the teamwork of all those involved that led to its success.

In April 2002, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn announced the conclusion of the “Nissan Revival Plan”, a twoyear programme to immediately steer

the vehicle manufacturer away from bankruptcy, and introduced the next phase of Nissan’s development, “Nissan 180”. The purpose of “Nissan 180” was to complete the revival of Nissan and stay on track for profitable growth by selling an extra million units, achieving an 8 per cent operating profit with zero debt within the next three years. It was an aggressive approach to the traditional Nissan management way.

With a declining Total Industry Volume (TIV) and market share trend, the C-Segment car market in Europe was becoming an increasingly difficult place for Nissan to compete (Figure 1). Nissan did not have the sales volume to leverage the cost of component parts and systems like other mass manufacturing OEMs did.

Nissan still continued its development of C-Segment that would replace Almera, until a milestone review meeting with senior management in 2003 was conducted, when the decision was made to stop. It was the business trigger to develop something innovative if Nissan were to stay competitive in the European C-Segment car market.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

M anagement

General tr

Market Share (%)

Sales (kUnit)

C-Segment sales volume and market share trend end is re

ducing

Nissan Mar

ket Share is

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Developing the concept

Nissan needed to come up with and quickly market a new product that delivered something which the current product could not. The product development team understood that they required something innovative and launched a cross-functional, cross-cultural concept generation activity, which focussed not only on creating an innovative product but also innovative features and functionality of the product.

The outcome of the activity was a very rough image of a potential new market opportunity that combined high value added features of two entirely distinct market segments of the present day. Nissan had a strong presence in the 4x4 market and wanted to draw on the experience, and apply it to the new proposal. Creating a new opportunity allowed Nissan to target the best of both 4x4 and C-segment markets; combining the high seating position and secure feeling of a 4x4 with the ride and handling, and dynamic performance of a C-Segment hatchback.

Protecting the vehicle’s innovation was important to Nissan. So in order to nurture its innovativeness, a new vehicle schedule was developed that drew on Nissan’s experience of passenger car development and introduced new innovation milestones. Nissan’s senior management was required to approve critical parts of the early development phase to ensure

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

shrinking

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Figure 1

that the initial concept was still being honoured whilst the product development teams worked in parallel across the globe in constant communication.

Engineering the vehicle

The development schedule that Nissan employed could easily be broken into two parts: virtual and physical. It was in the virtual phase in which Nissan made the greatest innovative steps.

Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) was used extensively to support styling and product planning discussions, where features could be easily modelled in real-time for immediate decisions.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used to provide real time technical feedback for every styling modification to ensure that the stretching performance and quality targets could also be achieved, maintaining the vehicle’s functionality. Advance Crash systems were also used. New features, such as the panoramic roof, meant that Nissan engineers were required to create innovative design solutions so that the safety targets were achieved.

As a result of the attention to detail and the innovative design solutions developed in the virtual phase, Nissan was able to achieve the highest

Positioning the C-Segment car OAH (mm)

X-Trail

C-4x4 Territory

Qashqai Placement

X-over Territory C-seg H/B Territory

D-seg SED, H/B Territory

OAL (mm) 4,000

4,100

4,200

4,300

4,400

4,500

4,600

4,700

4,800 Figure 2

M anagement

Conclusion

Nissan was able to develop one of the most successful vehicles ever launched in Europe as a result of its commitment to delivering an innovative products. It required the initial business trigger to challenge the traditional way of thinking within Nissan. It required the product development team to collaborate cross-functionally and cross-culturally,

ensuring that the original innovative concept was not lost during the development process. Finally, it required not only efficient but effective communication. There are many cultural influences A uthor

Euro NCAP crash safety performance score for adult occupant ever recorded.

Adult Occupant

37

Child Occupant

40

Pedestrian

18

that created the final version of Qashqai, and without the effective communication of all those that contributed to its realisation, it would not be a success that we see today.

Hideto Murakami is the Senior Vice President of Nissan Europe’s R&D and Total Customer Satisfaction Divisions. He is a board member of Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK, Nissan International SA, Nissan Motor Iberica SA and Nissan Technical Centre Brussels.

Prior to the current position he was the General Manager with responsibility for Advanced Vehicle Engineering.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

Russian Automotive Industry

The race has begun Leonid Dolgov Head Passenger Car Division GAZ Group, Russia

Russia is one of the world’s hottest auto markets. What do you think are the reasons for the recent boom in the Russian automotive industry and the influx of foreign automakers?

At present, the Russian car market is developing at a dynamic rate. This is to a large extent driven by the favourable macroeconomic situation in the country and the historic upsurge of Russian car population.

For a prolonged period, in the Soviet Union and then in the post-perestroika Russia, there was less capability for developing passenger car fleet. The main reasons were low buying power of the populace and the state’s economic policy which was aimed primarily at building up the country’s defense industry, very often neglecting the consumer industries. As a result,

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Russia is now suffering from a shortage of cars. As of 2007, the percentage of cars in Russia was 200 cars per 1,000 people, whereas in developed Western countries such as the US, this ratio exceeded 400.

Besides, a majority of Russia’s car owners possess cars that have been in operation for over 10 years which consequently need renewal.

Currently, a favourable economic scenario in Russia and rise in purchasing power of the populace are stimulating rapid and sustained development of the automotive market. Dynamic expansion of Russian car market compared to the markets that are slowing down is naturally attracting international OEMs seeking to expand their footprint in the global automotive market and to ensure sustained business growth.

M anagement

How are the domestic automakers performing? How do you think the joint ventures with foreign car makers have helped the domestic car makers?

Domestic automakers lag behind their foreign counterparts in production technology. But they have the advantage of being price leaders. However, in view of the rising pro-activeness of the international OEMs in the lower price segment of the market this advantage is gradually waning. In view of all this, the upcoming trend for Russian automakers seems to be partnering with global leaders to master advanced technologies and bridge the technological gap to offer the market a modern competitive product.

Today, Russian market has become quite attractive for the global OEMs to step in and even partner with domestic majors. Partnering with Russian companies would give them access to the Russian market—underutilised production capacity, trained and inexpensive workforce, development of dealer network, well-established relationships with Russian partners and government agencies- and benefit by using the resources available. This would ensure a foreign manufacturer quick entry to and consolidation in the Russian market.

How would you rate the domestic car manufacturers in terms of quality and technology when the best-selling Lada is still based on a 1960s rear-wheeldrive Fiat and GAZ is producing a relic of the 1980s in the form of the Volga executive sedan?

Indeed, the existing products of domestic car makers have become obsolete, both morally and technically. It should be noted, however, that as long as those products continue to find customers and generate profit for the manufacturer, continuing their production remains feasible. The Volga is a record holder in longevity. It has been in production at GAZ since 1970. It has earned well-deserved popularity owing to its embodiment of prestige and dignity for the users. Also, highly robust body and

suspension made the car indispensable as a taxi. Of course, Volga’s time is coming to an end. It is becoming outdated. But as long as Volga continues generating profit, with annual sales of around 40,000, we will continue manufacturing, for another 2-3 years.

This is the current situation. The future, no doubt, belongs to modern automobiles. Domestic automakers are well aware of this and are planning to launch new products in cooperation with global auto majors. For instance, GAZ Group’s Volga Siber is developed on a platform acquired from Chrysler and put into production in close cooperation with Magna International. Design of the car was developed by well-known UltraMotive atelier from UK, using the

Automotive Lighting, Lear Corporation, Tenneco Automotive etc. GAZ Group plans to localise production to 50 per cent subject to retaining or enhancing the quality of components turned out by Russian businesses. Mass production will has begun in July 2008 and by September the Siber will be available for sale.

Thus, we will be building a modern indigenous product, conforming with European quality standards. All rights to the product are owned by GAZ Group.

The capacity of the new production facility allows for manufacture of other models thus allowing for expansion in the long run.

The most important thing is that in the course of this project we have mastered advanced technologies being

The upcoming trend for Russian automakers seems to be partnering with global leaders to master advanced technologies and bridge the technological gap to offer the market a modern competitive product. modern trends in automotive design and taking into account Russian climatic and road conditions. Total investment in production of the car has amounted to over $290 million. A new production facility was built for manufacture of the car in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, with a capacity of 100,000 cars per year with 3,000 units of state-of-the-art equipment, 44 robotic systems (made in Japan and Germany) and automated welding lines. The level of automation of welding operations is 85 per cent in line with manufacturing standards across the world. 70 per cent of the car is assembled from components sourced from leading multinational suppliers from USA and Europe—Magna, Bosch, TRW, Valeo, ZF and others. Localised parts for the Siber would also be sourced from companies meeting international quality standards–subsidiaries of Magna,

used in the global automotive industry, with most of the workers and engineers going through practical training at Magna enterprises. GAZ has now learnt to build cars meeting European quality standards.

This is a unique way of advancing Russian automotive industry that has been chosen by GAZ Group and that will enable us to develop our own engineering and production resources.

It is estimated that by 2014 international car makers will account for about 60 per cent of all new cars sold in Russia as against the current rate of 30 per cent.

What according to you are the major hurdles currently facing the Russian automotive industry? How do you think companies like GAZ are going to tackle this shift?

True, growing share of international car makers in the Russian car market

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

M anagement

In a press conference in 2007, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov said that he thought there were no “promising” models produced by Russian car companies and the domestic industry had no viable future. What is your view on that?

I believe, what was meant in this particular case were the existing products of domestic automakers that are considered outdated now.

The existing technological gap between global and domestic auto manufacturers is practically impossible to bridge by purely domestic developments. If Russian car makers were to continue stewing in their own juice then, indeed, the future would be lamentable. But our new projects, such as the Volga Siber, are opening up the path of creating own high-tech automotive production in Russia.

10

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

try with the global automobile manufacturing and production of equipment meeting international environmental and safety standards. The concept called for creation of new capacity for auto production of automobiles, including participation of international capital, promotion of competition and stageby-stage integration into the world auto market.

The main changes in line with implementation of the development strategy are related to changing taxes on import of automobiles to the territory of Russian Federation (to a greater extent the change in tax affected import of used vehicles by private individuals) and introduction of the so-called “industrial assembly” of vehicles, creating incentives for global OEMs to create production facilities to build cars in the Russian territory with subsequent gradual localisation of production.

Raising car import taxes to a notable degree contributed to lower the competition that Russian manufactured cars faced from imported cars. On the P rofile

is quite predictable, taking into account government policy in the automotive sector which provides for establishing production operations of international OEMs with localisation of production in Russian territory. For GAZ Group and other domestic car makers the most promising way appears to be development in collaboration with international auto makers, including acquisition of licenses, purchasing production facilities and setting up joint ventures.

One of the main barriers for the development of the industry is the absence of manufacturing of high quality automotive components. GAZ Group will overcome this barrier by creating modern production facilities like plastics molding and new press facilities in collaboration with Magna International.

How has the Russian government contributed to the auto industry’s development? Your views on the initiatives undertaken / proposed by the government to promote the Russian automotive industry.

Russia’s automobile industry is developed under quite close scrutiny of the Government. In 2002, “The concept for developing domestic automotive industry until 2010” was adopted which outlines the major strategies for the industry’s development. The main objective was integration of Russian automotive indus-

whole, this had a positive effect on the car market structure and standing of domestic car makers.

Regrettably, the provision on industrial assembly failed to fully meet the interests of the domestic enterprises whose level of production localisation was high initially.

Today the interest of the state for the automobile industry has not diminished. Pursuant to an instruction of the President of the Russian Federation, the Union of Russian Automobile Manufacturers has developed “Draft strategy of Russian automobile industry development in 2008-2015 and for the period until 2020”. The Draft envisages implementation of the strategy in three stages: • 2008-2010 – organisation and expansion of production of automotive equipment and components by enterprises with foreign capital, re-equipment of operating domestic enterprises and creation of new prospective models of automotive equipment • 2011-2015 – creation of new, exportoriented automobile and components production facilities • 2016-2020 – meeting the country’s internal demand for automotive equipment, no less than 70 per cent of the value of which should be manufactured in Russian territory ensuring growth of export to 30 per cent of the production volume.

Such an approach allows one to count on development of Russian auto industry with the support of the state.

Interview conducted by Pragyan Paramita Barik, Editorial Associate, Auto Focus Asia.

Leonid Dolgov is the Head of GAZ Group’s Passenger Car Division. He holds MBA from Grenoble School of Management, France. Leonid was the Head of Project Finance Department, “Siberian Aluminum.” Prior to being the Head of GAZ Group, he also held the positions of First Deputy Director for Strategic Development of OAO, Director of Strategic Marketing Department, Director of Strategic Development and Director of Passenger Car Division in GAZ Group.

M anagement

Leveraging People, Processes and Technology For optimal market response

As organisations have grown and evolved, functions within the organisation have expanded and become more specialised. The result has been the unintentional creation of “functional silos” and hierarchical “command and control” in organisational structures.

Richard J Sherman President Gold & Domas Research USA

Market dynamics: Efficiency to responsiveness

A

s companies seek to integrate demand creation and fulfilment applications with financial and transaction oriented enterprise resource planning (ERP), they should architect their solutions with an eye towards optimal market response to dynamic market demand. These “integrated market response systems” combine the integrated vertical process management of traditional ERP with the planning and execution of horizon-

tal supply chain process management (SCM) applications, while even aligning internal processes and business partners’ processes through adoption of collaborative business practices. Supplementing enterprise systems and Lean Six Sigma process improvement initiatives with advanced decision support tools shows reduced inventory levels, better customer service, and increased sales leading to double digit increases in overall ROI.

Simply stated, whether you’re an OEM or Tier supplier, the mission of the automotive business is to profitably create products that customers will buy. The operational objective of the business is to deliver the “products” to the customer when and where they want. The financial objective is to charge a price equivalent to the customer’s perceived value while generating a return on the investment the business made to create the “products.”

Having been over-simplified, this concept led to the development of marketing mix theory, or the“4Ps”: • Product (Purchasing, Engineering and Manufacturing) • Price (Management and Finance) • Promotion (R&D, Marketing and Sales), and

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

11

M anagement

Marketing dynamics

Competition

Company

Competition

Product

Price

Promotion

Place

Competition

Competition

Channels Consumers

Marketing Mix (4Ps)

Marketing Participants (4Cs) Figure 1

• Place (Logistics, Distribution, and Service).

The participants in this mix are the “4Cs”: • Company • Customers • Channels (of distribution) and • Competitors.

The challenge is managing the 4Ps within the context of the 4Cs. Traditionally, performance improvement has been based on sets of internally focussed enterprise systems designed to improve operational efficiencies among the groups responsible for the 4Ps. These programmes have been highly focussed on operational measurements and controls within individual departments or functions. As organisations have grown and evolved, functions within the organisation have expanded and become more specialised. The result has been the unintentional creation of “functional silos” and hierarchical “command and control” in organisational structures that pass information sequentially up and through the functions, often becoming untimely, distorted and functionally oriented.

This information shortsightedness ignores a critical fact: many of the real

12

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

drivers of a company’s value lie outside its four walls. For example, recent studies indicate that 40-60 per cent of a company’s supply chain costs (7-15 per cent of revenue) are the result of factors outside its span of control. Business partner relationships across the supply chain and consumer behaviour are two such factors. No longer can an organisation stand alone. Interdependencies among supply chain participants create an “extended enterprise,” which includes material suppliers, manufacturers, channel supply partners (dealers, agents, third-party service providers), and even the customers / consumers themselves.

The enterprise applications focussing on individual departments have proven less optimal as power in the channel continues to shift from supply to consumption because customers enjoy more product variety and choices of suppliers in a global market. As the pace of change in the market accelerates, especially with the proliferation of web-based marketing and services, the inability of businesses to adapt and respond quickly to market changes has precipitated a tidal wave of transformation efforts and new strategic initiatives from JIT to TQM to Lean Six Sigma, SCOR and beyond in the quest for operations excellence.

These initiatives and their collaborative derivatives share the common theme of reducing the costs associated with timely response to uncertainty and change in customer demand.

Rapidly changing channels: Complicate responsiveness

The uncertainty of predicting customer demand results not only from seasonality and inaccurate sales forecasts, but also the vast array of choices and terms presented to customers, again compounded by the pervasiveness of the Internet and the proliferation of e-commerce applications. New competitors, models and technological content emerge every day, increasing the options customers have to meet their needs.

These increased competitive options have caused the power to shift from suppliers to consumers, resulting in incalculable variation in buying behaviours as switching brands time and cost is measured in nanoseconds.

Traditionally, suppliers and dealers have helped to buffer the manufacturers from volatile channel uncertainty by maintaining inventories and safety stock.

Unfortunately, the cost of maintaining and carrying inventories of a vastly larger array of products and specifications has reduced the competitiveness of many traditional suppliers, compounded by increased competition from new entrants and global competitors. Consequently, OEMs have focused their efforts on maximising inventory and demanding quicker responses to more frequently placed orders for assemblies and parts delivered in sequence at an appointed time. An increased frequency of customer orders coupled with demands for smaller quantities, forces increased truckload

Demand management structure Demand Performance

Demand Fulfilment

Demand Creation

Financial Strategy

Channel Strategy

Product Strategy

Value Chain • Investment • Cost • Revenue • Profit • Shareholder

Supply Chain • Raw Materials • Manufacturing • Logistics • Distribution • End Consumer

Demand Chain • Concept • Validation • Development • Commercialise • Customer

Economic Value Analysis

Results

Results Figure 2

M anagement

shipments versus rail and less-thantruckload quantities as the trade off between storage cost and transportation cost becomes a negotiable invoice allowance. For the supplier, this means proliferation and blurring of channels, more inventory risk, and increased service demands.

Today’s pressure to improve service, combined with the uncertainty of what a customer may order on a given day, has led most logistics functions to create finished goods inventory buffers (supermarkets) by increasing their safety stocks. In most cases, service levels have improved, but many times at the expense of higher operating costs. And, if their plans don’t meet the optimal ship date, premium freight costs erase already thin margins as failure to deliver is no longer an option.

As a result, there have been some significant changes in the way trading partners view the supply chain. They seek to integrate and coordinate supply chain activities that span different enterprise functions in order to create a smooth continual flow of material—a pipeline—from point of origin to point of consumption.

New enterprise systems (ERP) imperative: Responsiveness

Organisations that respond faster to changing markets and customer requirements will pre-empt competitor’s moves and create lasting market advantage by moving into the realm of time-based competition. By focussing on time as the common denominator, whether it’s the time required to fill an order or respond to a special request, a business can achieve an advantage over its competitors by improving its responsiveness, especially as the Internet transforms brand retention from traditional promotional initiatives to service response retention.

Time-based management leverages assets, drives quality, reduces risks and costs, lowers overhead, and allows companies to take advantage of the

significant opportunities presented by supply chain management.

Managing time depends upon managing information. Synchronising physical activity and transactions in horizontal processes with the associated information transactions is the first step in getting control over time. To succeed, companies need both person-to-person (WEB) and application-to-application (EDI) information sharing—the fundamental characteristics of the new enterprise system are visibility and communication. Systems that facilitate this sharing can revolutionise a business by making it responsive to changes in business processes, demand management structures, and relationships between suppliers, manufacturers, dealers, third-party service providers, and other participants in the supply chain.

Business structures

Information sharing does not in itself guarantee responsiveness. As we define the information systems required to maximise responsiveness, it is necessary to understand the business structures that govern corporate behaviour. These structures define the corporate functions and processes of the Enterprise Systems to support our work. We have identified three business structures applicable to virtually any type of organisation in any

industry: Demand Performance, Demand Fulfillment, and Demand Creation.

These business structures define the business processes (and systems to support them) to meet an organisation’s business objectives. Demand creation structures take product from concept through market validation and ultimately to the consumer through sales channels; demand fulfillment structures ensure the optimisation of raw material and product manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, and transport modes; and, demand performance structures or financial management processes monitor and manage the effectiveness of the entire organisation. Together, these three structures help companies efficiently and profitably run their businesses from operations, marketing, manufacturing, logistical and shareholder standpoints.

Traditionally, systems and applications have taken an “organisationcentric” view of the world by putting the organisation’s internal requirements before those of its trading partners.

The term “Enterprise Resource Planning” (ERP) was in fact originally developed to describe “multi-location” MRPII. The success of the largest ERP vendors was predicated more on financial systems needs than true enterprise wide

Integrated market response Demand Performance

Demand Fulfilment

Demand Creation

Product (Manufacturing)

Price

Promotion

(General Management) (Finance)

(R&D / Engineering) (Sales & Marketing)

Place (Distribution / Logistics) Figure 3

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

13

M anagement

Integrated Market Response Systems (IMRS) architecture Demand Performance

Demand Fulfilment Suppliers

HRIS; Payroll; Office; Admin.

EIS

Suppliers EDI Supp. Mang. Inv., Purchasing MRPU Materials Management

Demand Creation

Corp. Data Warehouse

Corp. Global Sys

R&D / Engineering Product / Prod / Pack Design, CAD, lims, chg / conf ctl, other

Manufacturing Finance

PCS, Packaging, QA, Plant Mgmt, Continuous Flow, Manf., FG Palletising

A/P, ABC, F/A, FC & Budget, G/L, Forecasting, Promo, Funds Mgmt, Invoicing, A/R, Cash Flow, EFT

Network Management

Intranet Services

Marketing Mkt Research / Suppl / Mdl, Promo Pln, F/C, Analysys, Consumer / Comp Intee, Category Mgmt System

Logistics FG, Logistics, F/C & DRP, WMS, Network MDL, TRA, CRP / vml / ar, ord Mgmt

3rd Party Trans Mgmt Systems

Customer Service System 3rd Party Log, Mgmt Systems

Customer/Partner EDI

Sales Sls Dec Supp, Broker, Mgmt, Budget, Comp Plns, Pln F/C Mgmt, Acct Mgmt, Sales Force Automation

Customer Sales data

Customer (Trade CHN) End Customer

Sales Agent / Broker System Figure 4

cross-functionality. These “best of breed” ERP financial systems grew quickly as “generally accepted accounting principles” reduce functional differentiation among vertical industries and companies. “Best of Breed” ERP manufacturing system vendors have suffered from lack of “generally accepted operating principles” and have enjoyed limited growth within select vertical markets. Traditional “best of breed” applications vendors for logistics, marketing, sales, R&D, and other functional systems are enjoying a growth increase at the expense of the ERP vendors.

An optimally responsive enterprise system, then, must react to

14

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

the sudden, often dramatic changes that occur throughout the integrated supply chain market. The traditional ERP system model doesn’t work because it suggests a single system approach to the requirements of the extended enterprise operating in an inter-enterprise industry market structure. Responding to changes in a multi-tier, multi-dimensional, interdependent market, we are convinced, will require a “system of systems” beyond the scope and capability of any one vendor to support. Much of the current criticism and time to implement issues facing large ERP vendors seem to bear this out. Likewise, current trends in enterprise systems point to, along with the prominent role

of traditional ERP, a rise in the accompanying systems extending through the demand fulfillment and demand creation structures and filling in the gaps between functions and companies.

Integrated system for rapid demand response

If we consider the previous market structure definition, it follows that we must craft and implement systems that follow an Integrated Market Response Template. The IMRS Template considers: • Market Dynamics of the 4Ps and the resultant functional / departmental interdependencies

M anagement

Integrated market response systems, cross functional and company boundaries

In Figure 4, we have overlaid an organisation’s required IMRS system architecture, based on the ability to support vertical and horizontal process activities defined by each of the three demand structures.

Note that while current ERP offerings are robust in the demand performance structure, they are only recently providing adequate functionality to support demand fulfillment. Also, they generally offer no functional support to the demand creation structure.

While relatively comprehensive, this architecture only superficially hints at cross-functional collaborative requirements and simply takes into consideration the interface requirements to external organisation “facing” requirements to support collaborative business practices.

Synchronisation across processes and company boundaries

Dynamic demand management (aka, collaboration) across the supply chain is emerging as the next “strategic imperative” as organisations seek to produce far more significant business impact and ROI in ERP and SCM systems.

ERP systems support management of current operations such as financial applications, centralised manufacturing planning and scheduling, and order processing within an organisation.

Designed to streamline material flow and support integrated demand planning, SCM helps companies determine which raw materials to purchase, which products to manufacture, and where to ship and deploy products and the timing of supporting activities. Collaborative applications synchronise the information among the ERP and SCM systems of any and all supply chain participants, allowing the extended enterprise to work from a common, consistent plan with universal visibility and communications.

Many industries have been able to reduce inventories and cycle time through the adoption of collaborative business practices, such as just-in-time manufacturing, vendor managed inventory, and kanban programmes. Requiring products at a specific time, yet lacking accurate demand forecasts, trading partners replenish distribution centres based on historical data rather than responding directly to customer demand.

However, these “make-to-stock” or “make to guess” supply chain practices result in excessive inventory throughout the supply chain, while simultaneously experiencing frequent out-of-stock conditions.

A uthor

• Demand Management Structures governing process management requirements • Discrete activities that must be performed as a result of these process definitions.

Given this template, market-responsive companies need to move quickly to Integrated Market Response Systems (IMRS) to meet the challenges and changes of a “Flat World” market evolution. These systems will be characterised by structurally defined operating requirements. As organisations become more market focussed and process managed, partnerships and alliances among trading partners will be the rule rather than the exception. These collaborative, demand-responsive organisations will require systems tailored to individual requirements governing the physical product flow through the channel; but, they must be integrated with other partners’ (internal and external) systems to enable timely response to demand changes across the supply network dictated by changing market conditions.

Refinements in demand forecasting and replenishment planning have encouraged leading companies to evolve business practices closer to a “make-to-demand” supply chain discipline. These companies would like to use predictive models of customer behaviour to drive the deployment of products efficiently worldwide.

Progress has been slow because each trading partner has its own set of plans (sales, purchasing, new product introductions, advertising campaigns, price changes and other promotional events) driven by their own set of economics and individual company business objectives. Partners also have unique intelligence about consumers and competition gathered from their own unique perspectives.

Promotions are frequent and consumer habits change rapidly, so a lack of knowledge about either is a tremendous disadvantage.

To realise their ultimate goal of optimal market response, companies must embrace a systematic, broad-scale sharing of plans and other intelligence to achieve the more likely “respond-todemand” efficiencies created by greatly improved forecast accuracy and the ability to act on those forecasts through integration with supply chain execution applications such as warehouse management and transportation management systems (WMS & TMS). Implementation of transformational initiatives such as Lean Six Sigma and SCOR require new technologies to provide daily decision support to enable people to sustain these performance improvement strategies. Companies that turn their focus to demand responsiveness and collaboration will lead the “Flat World” market of the 21st Century.

Richard J Sherman is President of Gold & Domas Research (GDR) and an internationally recognized writer, researcher, and speaker on trends and issues in supply chain management and related technologies. He was a founder in the development of the SCOR Model and other industry initiatives. As a research director, Richard successfully launched the supply chain management advisory services for AMR Research.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

15

M anagement

Central and Eastern European Countries The next challenge

The article examines critical success factors for Central and Eastern Europe to sustain as a low cost manufacturing base and examines various initiatives to be taken by the industry, labour and government for the industry to continue successfully.

W

ithin the European automotive industry “the exciting place to be” is Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This is the area where new assembly plants are being built, new markets are opening up and demand is holding up. But, at the same time, is it an area that, in its success holds the seeds of serious future challenges?

Why over the last decade has the automotive industry in CEE been so apparently successful—and why should it not continue to grow? Equally important, what steps are required to protect the lower cost industry in future in one of the true global industries?

While the first question can be answered relatively succinctly and clearly, the second is much more complex and continues to tax the energies of policy makers and investors.

Why has CEE become a successful manufacturing base?

Automotive manufacturing in a mature market such as the ‘Old EU’—the original member states of the European Union—has been driven principally by manufacturing cost, productivity and market opportunity.

16

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Peter N C Cooke KPMG Professor of Automotive Management University of Buckingham UK

Cost has been critical: Not just the cost of assembly, but also component supply, the overall supply chain, logistics, currency fluctuations, the single currency and the proximity to end use markets.

However, with the accession of the most recent members to the EU, that balance has shifted. A new group of countries joined the EU and the existing tariffs that were against them were lifted. More importantly, they

CEE vehicle manufacture – Drivers for change • Competition from China/India • Low cost producers/sourcing • New component suppliers Technology Political Economic Controlled use vehicles Environmental

New Entrants

Suppliers • Multiple tiering • Globalised Tier 1 suppliers • Quality/low cost Tier 2 suppliers • Supply chain/logistics • Subsystem vehicle builders

Profit optimisation Brand focus & protection Total product provision including service Expanding aftermarket Environment

Competition

Substitutes

• Integrated transport • New ways of working • Road congestion • Restriction on vehicle use

Buyers and users • High expectations • New market mix • Changing demands • Instant gratification • Legislation/protection • Energy/Material costs

Figure 1

M anagement

Manufacturer’s dilemma

The challenge to the global OEMs and indeed to tier one component suppliers is easy to express but difficult to

Stakeholders in automotive industry mobility

m fe to y s co ivit tal uct o T d • Pro ality ity • Qu bil • Mo •

• Policy • Electorate • Cost • Brussels • National image

ye

es

plo

Current host Country

Em

M Fina ar l ke • ts • Sup T • ra po • Tax inin r t p Fle re g ol icy xib gim ilit e y

Stakeholders in Industry Mobility

Tier 2 Suppliers

• • Lo • Qu wer • Loc ality co Su at o st pp ion f la lab or /s bo ou t s up ur r er ply vic c es ha Lo in pr wer Co odu co un cin st tri g es • Quality of labour • Infrastructure development • Market availability • Risk supply chain 1 s r r Tie plie p M Su OE o t ity hain iers xim ly c ppl o Pr p su • Sup r 2 ost • Tie tal c • To •

Higher cost producing Countries

e

m

y plo

• Investment • Employment • Tax issues • Infrastructure

nt

Government Policy

had a supply of young, adaptable and often skilled labour at lower wage levels than in mature EU-15 members as well as low-cost land, with the ability to build state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities with fewer regulations than elsewhere.

It is all too often forgotten that barely a century and a half ago the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with the United Kingdom and some states that were to become Germany were the industrial powerhouse of Europe—and those inherent engineering skills have remained.

Thus, the new low-cost manufacturing base of CEE was developed with its low-cost workforce, local markets eager for consumer goods and entry level cars in particular, matched by growing incomes.

A map of the CEE today shows a dynamic automotive industry supported by a strong tier one and tier two subassembly industries. Those plants primarily focus on lower cost products for the growing local markets.

The paradigm (Figure 1) shows some of the drivers for change that have led to the expansion of CEE vehicle manufacturing. These drivers for change are in many ways identical to those in the mature western European countries.

On the downside of the equation, however, the benefit of low cost labour and low cost land have started to dry up.

While there has been a large migration of younger workers to the old EU states to seek work and their fortunes, many are now moving back to pursue studies or careers at home, or to start their own businesses. Labour costs have started to escalate and there has been an increasing need to recruit labour from further east—so why not take the work and factories to further east at lower wages?

Land costs too have escalated.

• Proximity to Tier 1 • Proximity to OEMs • Relative cost levels • Relations with other Tier 2s

Figure 2

answer—“Do they continue to develop automotive market in the CEE—or do they consider, as those plants begin to mature and require further investment, building new, greenfield operations further east, where labour and land may be cheaper?”

Thus, Romania and the Ukraine are starting to grow as automotive manufacturing bases. They will, over time, become significant markets too, albeit perhaps initially for used vehicles and then lower cost entry level units and then maturing into the higher value-added products as in Western Europe—but that is half a generation away.

Where does the CEE feature in this scenario?

Such is the question challenging automotive strategists around the world.

The CEE represents a growing market

with a lot of further potential—the cars sold per 1,000 population is small compared with mature markets and, while costs are rising, so are incomes.

However, a globalising industry cannot build on that. To be low-cost is no longer sufficient.

The paradigm (Figure 2) highlights some of the stakeholders in industry mobility—they are powerful indeed!

While this chart is not comprehensive, it indicates some of the pressures on the automotive industries from different stakeholders. The range of issues highlighted by the analysis also indicates the range of concerns to be resolved.

Unless those concerns can be resolved there is always a risk that the industry could move if a lower cost option saving a few dollars were offered.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

17

M anagement

Successful automotive assembly and components manufacturing Integrated and flexible supply chain; capable of changing throughput to reflect market needs and changes in the product offering Proximity to domestic and export markets— with clear and effective logistics routes to be able to export—over land or by sea Low cost of production, facilities and acceptable wage levels within the parameters of productivity achieved Accepted cluster strategy to enable tier one and two businesses to work together, communicate easily and minimise logistics costs and enhance flexibility Available and sustainable workforce— generally with an age spread—with access to appropriate good quality training Government and political will to succeed— an added bonus is a supportive opposition party agreeing the government’s industry policy so any change in power would not lead to economic disruption. * For illustrative purposes only; not comprehensive

It’s an industry truism that “the longer an industry is established, the less likely it will be to move because of the way the total supply chain has developed to support it”. However, for an automotive industry that has been established little more than a decade, it is important that those critical success factors which hold an industry can be accentuated and developed to help retain an industry rather than let it move to a lower cost territory.

This might appear to be what is happening in the automotive assembly industry in CEE. While government and quasi-government agencies may be offering incentives to companies willing and able to move, what steps are being taken to retain those automotive investments—and the opportunities for economic growth which they may represent?

18

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Quite simply one is asking for a positive business climate that is willing and able to adapt and grow. Any manufacturing base must always be looking over its shoulder for competition trying to steal its business. Equally important, the workforce must feel included in the successful strategy.

In addition to the positive issues highlighted above, the low cost industries of CEE have also sought an area where there is political stability, minimal corruption and a comprehensive industry-oriented legal system.

Government initiatives

A critical issue that would now appear to be accepted in the automotive industry in CEE nations is the role of government in the success—and retention—of the industry. In many ways the industry attitude might be interpreted as ‘let us get on with the task without external interference’. Historically, government has felt “it knows what is best” and many cases can be quoted where such an attitude has driven companies away.

One of the world’s great lies is, allegedly, “I’m from government; I’m here to help you.” Governments in CEE have accepted a series of very basic, unwritten initiatives that are considered by many to be core to the success of the lower cost automotive industry. Consider some of the more important ones: • Minimise political and directional interference; too often there are “political favours” required that may lead, for example, to industry being directed to unsuitable locations.

• All political parties declared tax policies; once again a signal from politicians that they intend to support industry and not see it as a cash generator. A start-up or developing industry is a big investment risk—players expect to have a good retention of margins.

• Ministerial access and support; high on the agenda of many successful

players is access to relevant ministers—and those ministers’ willingness to support the industry and shift bottlenecks if necessary.

• Government provision of support for training—not just skills training for the workforce but a willingness to support the development of indigenous management—and accept that training may be provided by international specialists.

• Minimisation of bureaucracy is also important. Customs officials need to work at global best practice speeds rather than hold up consignments “because they have always done it” • Active support for the development of transport infrastructure and logistics support and a willingness to be guided by the industry rather than government planners and local politicians.

• Support for trade association development; and a willingness to meet and consult trade associations regularly on critical issues.

These attributes and statements may appear to be obvious. They are, in theory – but are they in practice? Horror stories can be told about most of them where even one small issue can hold up an integrated, multinational option.

The ability to remove obstructions quickly, cleanly and equitably ties into several of the points made earlier.

It is possible to enumerate lists of attributes for the tier one and tier two component players in the automotive industries that will help to attract and retain businesses.

Further strategic issues

Added bonuses for retaining automotive industries would include the provision, whether by government or trade bodies of such features as shared test facilities, establishment and successful development of appropriate higher educational facilities in design, technology and manufacturing management.

Frankly, it does not matter whether a nation is seeking to retain a low cost

M anagement

economically viable, is quite probably the most sophisticated of production in that everything needs to run absolutely smoothly—all the time—and to keep improving. That efficiency applies not just to the OEM assembler but also applies even more importantly further back up the supply chain in that the supply chain needs to be costeffective and flexible.

Protection of the low-cost automotive industry in CEE is not merely a matter of lowest cost of production. It is much more complex; it is the ability to provide a total industry with support—assembly,

A uthor

automotive manufacturing industry or to retain an industry based on much more expensive and sophisticated products. The rules are essentially the same.

A successful banker in one of the CEE countries has given a neat soundbite with regard to the industry; The manufacturing nation has to be able to link production efficiency with markets and industry support—at competitive cost.

But that statement can be developed further with a clear lesson for the would be predator nation seeking to capture that business; Essentially the low-cost manufacturing country needs to be able to offer extreme value for money—in the broadest sense—and efficiency and effectiveness may be the key.

Interpret that as one may but there is a clear if hidden message starting to emerge. Low cost production, to be

components, support services, political and economic stability and the personnel to support it.

Conclusion

The CEE is a growing market as well as a lower-cost manufacturing location.

The challenge for India is perhaps not so much to poach business from Central and Eastern Europe—it is surely more a matter of developing another lowcost manufacturing industry to be able to supply the booming demand for automotive products in the next great market.

Peter N C Cooke is the KPMG Professor of Automotive Management at the University of Buckingham Business School, UK. Prior to his current appointment, Cooke held a similar chair at Nottingham Business School. He spent 20 years working in the automotive industries – with Ford Motor Company, in the oil industry, in automotive components and in high technology.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

19

M anagement

Luxury Car Market

German battle on

Earlier…

The scenario was very different until the early 1990s, when luxury car manufacturers were facing the herculean task of entering the extremely under-represented Indian car market. The automotive

20

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

sector in India was highly protected with steep import tariffs and measures that restricted the participation of foreign companies.

However, liberalisation of the country’s economy gradually transformed the market into a coveted destination for major luxury car manufacturers.

Mercedes-Benz India, set up as a joint venture between Daimler-Benz and Telco in 1995, was the first premium car manufacturer to enter India. The recent developments in urban infrastructure also helped the market register tremendous growth.

Audi entered India in mid-2004 while its parent company Volkswagen, world’s third largest car manufacturer, entered India in 2007 with its first locally assembled model Passat. BMW formally entered in 2006 with a sales office in Gurgaon, in North India.

5 series sedans that are locally assembled in Chennai, Tamil Nadu accounted for 80 per cent of the company’s sales in India in 2007. To support the rise in sales, during the same year, the company also established its international purchasing office in India for procuring various components from its global operations.

Audi plans to increase its sales in India by two to three times in the next few years, for which, the company also intends to expand its distribution network rapidly so that it should be able to offer its full line in India by 2015. Table 1 exemplifies the performance of the three brands during the last couple of years.

Growth of luxury car market in India 12000 10000

Number game

Mercedes has seen a growth of 11 per cent in 2006 and 18 per cent in 2007. It has witnessed a growth of 58.5 per cent in the total sales of C-class and S-class in the first quarter (between January and March) of 2008. The company further expects its sales to climb 18 per cent in 2008, to roughly 3,000 vehicles.

For BMW, expansion of dealer network across a number of Indian cities has expedited the pace of sales. The 3 and

No. of Cars Sold

“We are going to launch the super sports car Audi R8 this autumn,” said an optimistic Benoit Tiers, Managing Director, Audi India, during an interview with the magazine, days after his company launched its A4 version in India.

His optimism reflects a huge potential the burgeoning Indian luxury car market holds for big brands from the west. Nearly ten thousand new luxury cars (which generally include cars that cost over Rs. 25 lakh) are expected to be sold this year as against 4,500 cars in 2007.

Though the number might not be too tempting, the rate of growth definitely is (Chart 1).

Foreign luxury car makers such as Rolls-Royce, Porsche, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Maserati and Jaguar all have set their eyes on India, but it’s the battle between three German brands—the old horse Mercedes-Benz, and the two relatively new entrants Audi and BMW—that is stealing the show. Mercedes Benz, which has enjoyed monopoly until recently, is facing stiff competition from its two aggressive German counterparts.

8000 6000 4000 2000 0

2006

2007 Year

Chart 1

2008

2008

(till April) (expected)

Omer Ahmed Siddiqui Assistant Editor Auto Focus Asia

Indian soil Fascinated by the growth figures, all the three leading players have set upbeat sales target for themselves this year. While BMW aims to sell 2000 cars in India in 2008, Audi and market leader Mercedes have set targets to sell 1200 and 3000 cars respectively by the end of this year.

Collectively Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz have pegged the target for the current year at around 7,000 units, a rise of 75 per cent over last year.

Top performers

As reported in July 2008, small luxury cars such as Mercedes C Class, BMW 3 Series and Audi A4 accounted for approximately 40 per cent of the total luxury car sales in India. These cars are between 4.5 and 4.75 metres long and are priced between Rs 25 to 35 lakh (Chart 2).

The high-end models such as Mercedes E Class, BMW 5 Series and Audi A6 accounted for approximately another 40 per cent of the total sales.

These cars have a price range between Rs 40 to Rs 50 lakh.

Mercedes S Class, BMW 7 Series and Audi A8, which are 5 metres in length and available in a price band of Rs 75 to Rs 150 lakh, accounted for another 10 per cent of the total sales of luxury cars in India.

Imported SUVs like Mercedes M Classes, BMW X5 and Audi Q7 and sports cars like the Mercedes SL or SLK,

The excitement is getting better and better with the German car makers queuing up some of their hottest models for the Indian consumers.

the BMW 6 Series and Audi TT sports coupes accounted for the remaining 10 per cent of the luxury car sales in India.

BMW India President Peter Kronschnabl notes that total car sales are growing at the rate of 16 per cent annually; on the contrary, luxury car sales are recording an annual growth rate of 50 per cent.

Factors affecting demand

The swift growth of luxury car segment in India deserves a special mention. Despite fuel price uncertainties, the market is evidencing an unprecedented growth.

So, the question remains, what’s pushing this tilt in favour of luxury cars?

Disposable income

Pragyan Paramita Barik Editorial Associate Auto Focus Asia

A booming economy, flourishing real estate prices, strengthening stock market and the parallel boom in the IT, manufacturing and service sectors have led to the growth in the urban middle and upper class disposable incomes. With rising incomes and fast-growing purchasing power, the proclivity towards discretionary spending on luxury brands among the rich and the neo-rich has apparently increased. Brand consciousness has

also steadily gone up. Luxury cars are something the nouveau riche aspires to own, as they connote success and status.

Moreover, people’s passion and the urge to flaunt their status have led to substantial rise in the sales of luxury cars.

Easy finance

The growth of premium car sales is also facilitated by the easy availability of car finance on easy installments and at reasonable interest rates. Financial institutions and automobile manufacturers have launched various loan schemes that have made it very easy for people to buy luxury car. Young professionals pick up bank credit to buy their dream high-end premium cars.

Expanding consumer base

The boost in demand is also triggered by the rise in the list of prospective buyers for luxury cars in the hinterland / smaller cities. Consumers in smaller cities like Chandigarh, Kolhapur, Bhiwandi, Nagpur, Ludhiana and Pune are now purchasing premium cars. To catch up with their demands, luxury car manufacturers are aggressively opening dealerships even in Tier 2 cities.

Recent performance 2006

2007

Till May 2008

2008 (projected)

2043

2491

1621

3000

BMW

250

1387

1323

2000

Audi

275

380

460

1200

Mercedes-Benz

Table 1

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

21

M anagement

Segment-wise sales

10%

Mercedes M Class, BMW X5, Audi Q7, Mercedes SL or SLK, BMW 6 Series and Audi TT

10% 40%

40%

Mercedes S Class, BMW 7 series and Audi A8 Mercedes C Class, BMW 3 series and Audi A4

Mercedes E Class, BMW 5 series and Audi A6

Chart 2

Enhancing driving experience

Luxury car manufacturers are customising their brands to meet the demands and requirements of the Indian consumer.

Audi, as a part of its three-pronged strategy to enhance sales, is modifying the cars to meet Indian market demands through an energetic product line. BMW, on the other hand, is planning to sell Mini Cooper, a premium classic small car in India.

Luxury car manufacturers are coming up with technically-sophisticated and new designer variants because they have realised that the Indian consumer is wellinformed and extremely demanding like his Western counterpart. New models not only attract new consumers, but they also draw the existing customers. Mercedes Benz leverages upon the most important factor–the quality of its cars manufactured in India. Dr. Wilfried Aulbur,

Managing Director and CEO of Daimler India, takes pride in stating that the quality of cars manufactured by the company in India is superior to those produced in Germany. Concentrating more on quality, the pace of production operations in Indian branch has been deliberately kept slow compared to that of its counterparts elsewhere. In fact, Mercedes produces 2,000 to 2,500 units in India annually, which is equal to the company’s one day production in Sindelfingen, Germany.

Capitalising on the experience it has gained in the past three years in India, Audi is moulding its cars to meet the Indian consumer requirements. As most of the Audi A4 cars are chauffeurdriven, the company is concentrating on enhancing the comfort and riding experience of the passengers sitting in the rear seat. On this front, it has added more leg room in the rear compartment, increased rear seat entertainment options and set up improved air-conditioning units with rear seat controls.

Audi in India Gaining ground

The Indian market is one of the fastest growing car markets in the world and Audi is one of the fastest growing luxury car brands worldwide – in our view a perfect combination!

Benoit Tiers Managing Director Audi India

22

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Audi is one of the hottest brands in the luxury segment in India. Can you tell us about Audi’s journey in India so far?

In India, the sale of cars and other luxury products is booming. It is very interesting to follow it and there are a lot of opportunities. Audi is the fastest growing luxury car manufacturer in the world and our customers in India enjoy the same experience as anywhere else.

M anagement

Factors affecting supply

A number of factors affect the supply of luxury cars in India—rising cost of raw material, regulatory environment that both positively and negatively impacts foreign automotive manufacturers and strengthening value of rupee against foreign currencies.

Raw material cost

The cost of raw material such as steel and aluminum used in manufacturing automotive body and components is increasing. However, the component manufacturers are restrained from passing on the cost burden to the consumer due to the stiff competition. Automotive manufacturers argue that greater quantity of steel goes in producing the car body as compared to the components; hence they are already burdened by the rise in raw material costs and may not be able to take on the additional costs. As reported in May 2008, the cost of steel in the international market increased by 25 per cent and

Strengthening value of rupee

The demographic profile of luxury car owners has changed over a period of time. There was a time when older and wealthier people were the most popular buyers of premium cars. But today, the highly-aspirational Generation Y pooling fat bucks and with greater purchasing power are the proud owners of high-end luxury cars. As articulated by Suhas Kadlaskar, Director (Corporate Affairs), Mercedes Benz, India, “The average age of a Mercedes Benz owner, which used to be 45 years earlier, has now come down to 35 years.”

(Source: Business Standard)

aluminum by 23 per cent during the three month period (February-April 2008).

The rising value of rupee, even though a sign of strengthening economy, does not bode good prospects for the Indian import market. Rise in value of rupee against the dollar indicates a rise in production / distribution expenses and car price for multinational luxury car manufacturers exporting to India.

Regulatory environment

The opening of Indian economy followed by implementation of favourable regulation for automobile companies such as easing of foreign investment, relaxation of equity regulations has inspired luxury automakers to launch their vehicles in India or expand their existing range. In fact, they are making a beeline to this new lucrative destination. As a result, the Indian car market is flooded with stylish, comfortable and hi-tech premium cars.

The national policies that magnetise in the international market international luxury brands from all around the globe

Audi Q7 and the new Audi A4. We have recently launched the new Audi A4, and plan to launch more luxury car models in the near future

Although we entered the Indian market at a later stage, we have managed to capture the minds of the Indian consumers. We have received a tremendous response from the Indian market.

We have undergone an enormous growth within the past few years. In 2005, we were selling 105 units. In 2007, Audi sold 350 cars with three dealers. In the first four months of 2008 Audi India

increased its sales countrywide by 123 per cent to 321 cars (January - April 2007: 144 units). In the most successful month April sales grew by 268 per cent in comparison to April 2007. At present Audi has seven dealerships across the country, with plans to open five more by the end of the year.

Our range of cars available here include the Audi A6, Audi A8, Audi TT,

How does Audi plan to cope with the competition? What are the strategies formulated by Audi to expand its share in India?

Well, competition in our sector like many others has stimulated market—the expansion of the offer structure always generates more demand! In fact, we have been the late entrants in the Indian market but with a definite plan and exemplary product line we will catch up soon.

To expand our market share in India, we plan to follow a three pronged strategy: First, to spread awareness about Audi’s brand image and products among our target audience, the affluent buyer.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

23

M anagement

24

Second, to establish an efficient infrastructure with an experienced dealer network. Audi has been implementing its high standards of world class sales and after-sales service in its Indian operations. Audi currently has seven exclusive dealerships in Delhi, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Five new dealerships would come up in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kochi, Kolkata and Ludhiana by year-end.

And third, through an energetic product line. The Audi model range in India includes Audi A8, Audi Q7, Audi A6, Audi TT Coupe and the recently launched new Audi A4. We plan to bring in the Audi R8 by autumn this year, and the Audi Q5 is also on the cards for the Indian market.

We see India on a long-term basis.

The Audi manufacturing facility at Aurangabad at which the Audi A6 is now produced by CKD production will start assembling the Audi A4. We are setting

up a second line for the CKD production for the Audi A4, which will be ready by the end of the year. We plan to increase our capacity at the Aurangabad unit depending on demand.

To summarise our primary objective would be to continuously innovate and keep a tap on what our customers in India are looking for.

also pose serious difficulties for them by limiting their activities. At present, importers of luxury vehicles have to pay import duties of about 110 per cent, which include import duty of 60 per cent, countervailing duty of 24 per cent and the rest as state taxes.

V Sridhar, member of Central Board of Excise and Custom (CBEC) notes that the countervailing duty (CVD) is levied on imports and is designed to limit international trade so as to protect local manufacturers. The high import duty, as observed by Benoit Tiers, Managing Director, Audi India, is not only a burden for the customer, but also for the manufacturer.

Considering the cut-throat competition, luxury car manufacturers are not restraining themselves from absorbing these taxes, instead of passing them to the consumers. Audi that launched its A4 model this July in India has announced its plans to absorb import taxes slapped

on the sedan instead of transferring it to the consumers.

In the wake of soaring oil prices, the government has recently decided to levy an additional excise duty on fuel gulping cars which is also applicable to imported luxury cars. So, the customers now have to spend an extra amount of Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 to buy these cars.

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Luxury cars are yet to garner a considerable pie in the Indian market. What are the challenges Indian market presents for luxury car makers? How does Audi plan to cope with those challenges?

The Indian automotive industry has evolved greatly in the past few years.

Especially in the luxury car segment we see a further growth, which is one reason for numerous manufacturers to enter the market. Although numbers are limited at present, we strongly believe in a positive development and augmentation of sales in the luxury segment. Audi intends to be a driver in this category because

Extending reach

Luxury car manufacturers are implementing various strategies to stay ahead of their competitors. Audi has implemented two strategies to cope with the intense competition and consequently expand its market share in India—spread awareness about Audi and its products and establish an efficient dealership infrastructure, world-class sales and after-sales service.

Encouraged by the spiralling demand for luxury cars in India the first and foremost strategy adopted by car makers

the cars definitely meet the Indian customers’ requirements.

Comment on the impact of custom duties on the pricing policy of Audi in India?

Luxury customers in India still face a high duty on imported products in general. With regard to cars, 116 per cent import duty is not only a burden for the customer but as well for the manufacturer. We hope that this situation will change in future—a growing market will give many benefits to the Indian economy.

By far, Mercedes has been the market leader in the luxury segment in India.

With the competition fast catching up in the form of BMW and Audi, how do you see the luxury car market in India shaping up in the near future?

India’s luxury car market has tripled over the last five years. The market offers excellent potential for growth. There is

is to expand their distribution network.

Old player Mercedes Benz clearly has a competitive advantage in the form of strong and deeply entrenched distributor network as compared to its competitors like BMW and Audi who are relatively new to the Indian market. Mercedes Benz operations in India span for more than 50 years and the company leverages on a vast distribution network that stretches across 26 cities. However, Mercedes cannot sit back leisurely as BMW and Audi are aggressively ramping up their dealership network.

BMW plans to add three more dealerships by the end of this year to its existing range of 12 dealerships in the country. The new dealerships are slated for Cochin, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata.

Buoyed by the tremendous growth in luxury car sales, BMW also expanded the production capacity of its Chennai plant from 1,700 units to 3,000 units per year. On August 7, 2008 it opened a

M anagement

an increase in the number of affluent customers who appreciate the kind of quality and luxury that Audi can offer them. In India, as we were in China, Audi is definitely in the right place at the right time.

With infrastructure improving and ambition levels of the younger generation being what they are, I believe that sales of luxury cars will increase dramatically.

The segment has grown by more than 200 per cent and this year it is expected to double AudiR8 is scheduled for October 2008 launch in India. How do you think the car will help Audi in terms of gaining new customer base?

India is an important market for Audi, and there has been a tremendous interest in the Audi R8 up to pre-orders by our exclusive customers in India, so it was inevitable that we launch the Audi R8 here. The Audi R8 is an important product for the Indian market, as it

BMW Studio in New Delhi as a brand building exercise.

Audi, which currently has seven exclusive dealerships in Delhi, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore plans to expand its dealership to Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kochi, Kolkata and Ludhiana by year-end.

Porsche which has centres in Delhi and Mumbai plans to expand to Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai too. Volvo Cars, part of Ford’s Premier Automotive Group (PAG) intends to set up dealerships in the country’s top 10 cities. Further, these companies are also trying to improve their sales and service networks.

The road ahead

Luxury cars, though don’t sell like potatoes and onions, have a craze among the burgeoning Indian affluent aficionados. The visible effect is reflected in the growing sales figures of luxury cars.

With total car sales growth pitched at

16 per cent over the next five years, as reported in January 2008, the luxury segment is projected to see the greatest rise.

Witnessing the boom in the luxury car market, car manufacturers are revising their sales targets every other day.

For instance, Porsche plans to sell 400 Cayenne SUVs and Carerra or Boxter sports cars this year, Volvo targets to sell 500 of its XC90 SUVs and S80 saloons.

On the other hand, several high-end Lamborgini and Volkswagen cars are queuing up to entice the ultra rich of the Indian population. Post-acquisition, Tata Motors is planning to launch Jaguar models in India.

While, Audi plans to roll out super sports car R8 and the small car A3, BMW plans to launch premium classic small car Mini Cooper in India. Mitsubishi Motors, the Japanese car maker, will launch the Outlander sports utility vehicle by the end of 2008 and the Lancer

would help build the Audi brand in this market Can you brief us on the new manufacturing facility being set up at Aurangabad for Audi A4?

Audi is setting up a second line for the CKD production for A4, which will be ready by the year-end. We are producing A6 model and will gradually extend it to A4 model in our Group factory in Aurangabad with exclusive Audi trained workers and top-of-the-range Audi assembling standards.

Would you like to make any other comments?

The Indian market is one of the fastest growing car markets in the world and Audi is one of the fastest growing luxury car brands worldwide—in our view a perfect combination!

Interview conducted by Omer Ahmed Siddiqui, Assistant Editor, Auto Focus Asia.

Evolution X, also called Evo 10 in 2009.

Fiat is all set to launch its Alfa Romeo car in India by the last quarter of 2008.

In India, earlier luxury cars would be inherited as a legacy from forefathers; however, the young entrepreneurs of this generation prefer to buy the high-end cars themselves. The changing trend in the ownership structure depicts how the luxury car market is evolving in India.

Industry specialists predict that the Indian luxury car market will unfold huge growth potential in the coming years. They believe that in the wake of recession in the US market and car manufacturers selling smaller, cheaper, lighter and greener cars in Europe, Asia and other emerging economies offer huge opportunity for the expensive models.

Summing up Benoit Tiers says, “With infrastructure improving and ambition levels of the younger generation being what they are, I believe that sales of luxury cars will increase dramatically.”

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

25

In-film Placement Carmakers’ tryst with Hollywood Product placements in Hollywood are gaining wide appeal in the global auto industry. Carmakers, aiming at specific benefits, are competing to glorify their brands in popular films. The question remains—does this persuade movie-goers to buy the car that is being projected in the film?

26

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Roopna Ravindran Editorial Associate Auto Focus Asia

H

ot zooming cars! Be it small, mid-sized or premium, cars have a pervasive influence on society. The globalised scenario conditions people to own and drive dynamic cars. Possessing flashy and expensive cars reflects the opulence of its owners, and the increasingly commercialised social order of the present day views high-end cars as reflecting its owner’s hierarchy and status in society.

Indoctrination into this auto-dominated culture begins at a very early age.

Even kids today evince a keen interest in cars. They grow to become car-savvy people in sync with the recent trends in the automotive domain. The neo-rich youth of present day go crazy for the brand new cars in the market. They seem to

be conscious of the latest technological innovations in the automotive world. For them, cars symbolise freedom and reflect their lifestyle. Cars thus integrated, play a crucial role in popular cultural sphere.

Providing years of comfort and pleasure, cars have turned out to be one of the most important part symbols of popular culture. Popular culture obviously deals with what is popular within the social context and is well tied up with commercial culture and its mediums of expressions like TV, films, etc. The culture takes prominent place in promoting a brand, especially while advertising on TV. Advertisements featuring dazzling cars driven by celebrities are considered to enhance the brand image of that particular car. Apart from the direct commercials,

cars are also intentionally placed in TV shows for the promotion of brands. Ford cars used in X-Files, Charlie’s Angels, 24; Nissan in Desperate Housewives and Ferrari in Magnum P.I. are some examples.

Profound manifestation of this technique can be seen on big screen. Big screen placements are a great hit most often than any other. Movies are one of the most exciting and popular mediums and provide huge scope to market consumer goods. Hollywood, during the years, gave great attention to feature a range of luxury cars in their films. At times, these appearances of cars seem to be purposeful with an inherent advertisement motive. This poses the question: Are such expositions in films a revelation of car marketing strategy?

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

27

Iconic cars in films Cars played a significant role in almost all popular films, but it is quite interesting to note how only certain films have highlighted cars and hyped the idea of owning and driving those specific brands. This glorifying is visible from Steve McQueen’s Mustang in Bullitt (1968) to James Bond’s Aston Martin.

A number of yesteryear films featured modified and customised cars like the Batmobile in Batman Series (1950s), Volkswagen Beetle in The Love Bug (1968), Herbie Rides Again (1974), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Herbie Goes Bananas (1980). The

28

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

racing scenes, chasing sequences and action episodes in films which depict the film hero buzzing in smashing cars precisely reinforce the viewer’s desire to own the respective brand. Bullitt (1968) had a widely appreciated chase scene in which Ford Mustang GT and Dodge Charger are involved.

Showcasing of important brands in films in these ways reveal the in-depth marketing tactics involved. “Movies and Television are several of the strongest influences in society and many trends originate out of movie and television content, therefore, having a good

placement for one of our cars helps build the desire for our brand,” discloses Bob Witter, Manager of Ford Global Brand Entertainment in a special interview with Auto Focus Asia (AFA).

Of late, a few highly sophisticated cars have been developed specifically for certain films. Example of this trend is the Audi RSQ Sports Coupe, a futuristic car developed only for I, Robot (2004). Dirk Roeder (Dirk) of Audi International Film Marketing Entertainment and Gaming in an interview with AFA mentions how Audi was selected as the future car for I, Robot, “Alex Proyas, the director of I, Robot, contacted us very early in the production process – he could only imagine an Audi as the main character’s car to play an integral part of his futuristic set up and storyline.”

In I, Robot Audi provided a number of cars in disguised shapes in many of the traffic scenes. An interior mockup was also made for the car scenes in the film.

Technically termed as product placement, those scenes promoting cars amalgamate with the core content of the film and stimulate the target audience even without their awareness.

An effective tool to market cars?

Product placement is not new to the film industry. Products were introduced in films from very early times.

In the 1930s, MGM Studios had an office exclusively for companies seeking placements. And in the same period Buick automobiles signed a 10-picture deal with Warner Bros. Gold Diggers (1935) is a prime example for which Buick provided the cars to be used as props in the films.

Today, car placement has become positively pervasive. Car makers are now moving more aggressively, seeking prominent roles for their brands featured in films. Ford, BMW, Mercedes, Chevrolet, Audi etc., have made a visible presence in many popular films. Audi in Iron Man (2008), Lambhorghini in The Dark Knight (2008), Mercedes in Sex and the City (2008), GM in Transformers (2007) and Ford Mustang GT in The Departed (2006) are some of the recent citations for exhibiting the latest cars that have been introduced in the market.

Audi went on to showcase a number of its brands in Iron Man (2008) and GM supplied about 65 cars for Transformers (2007). The latter film, depicting aliens who take mechanical forms when on Earth gave umpteen product placement opportunities for GM brands. “Autobot Bumblebee,” the central character in the film gets transformed from the

James Bond films began the trend of exclusive placement of cars in films.

Super sporty vehicles are often associated with Bond films. James Bond drove cars such as Aston Martin DB5, DB7, V8 Vantage, V12 Vanquish, DBS, Lotus Espirit, BMW Z3, BMW 750iL and BMW Z8. Bond’s most famous car has been the silver grey Aston Martin DB5 as seen in Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Casino Royale (2006). The yet to be released Quantum of Solace features Ford Ka.

Companies whose cars were featured in movies during 2007-08 Cars appeared in films

2007

2008*

24

5

BMW

8

5

Chevrolet

7

2

Dodge

6

0

GMC

5

0

Volvo

5

0

Hummer

8

0

Lincoln

8

0

Ford (including Mustang)

(Source: WIRED.com)

* Upto April’ 08 Figure 1

classic Chevrolet Camaro. “Autobot Jazz” converts from a Pontiac Solstice.

A Hummer H2, modified as a rescue vehicle, changes into “Autobot Ratchet” and “Ironhide” changes from a GMC TopKick medium-duty truck .

The goal of product placements according to the company officials is to create “brand awareness” and “strengthening the image of the brand” among the populace who are quite unaware of any

kind of sponsor involvement in the film.

The brand gets imprinted on viewer’s minds when the camera focuses the car and its logo repeatedly in the midst of the main shots. Dirk explains about the strategies behind Audi’s placements in recent films, “We implement product placement according to our overall strategy that demonstrates the core attributes of our brand: “sporty”, “sophisticated” and most importantly “progressive”.

The role of the vehicle is analysed; an Audi tends to play an actual role, almost representing a character rather than just a mode of transportation in our chosen scripts. This was the case in I, Robot as in Iron Man. And this role has to fit its character: its dynamic, sportiness and progressiveness. At the same time, it is crucial that the car helps and supports the story, that it becomes an integral part.”

A statistical data of top automotive brand appearances during the year 200708 proves car manufacturers’ inclination towards product placement in films.

Figure 1 explicates Ford’s record of product placements in the recent past.

The striking car design with its cutting edge technology has definitely added character to the films that Ford has been part of. This according to the company officials has paved way for the successful placements.

Bonding with the best

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

29

The cars presented in Bond films have marked endurance and excellent crash resistance. Marketers try to match the “personality” or brand attributes of their vehicles with the personality and the type of role that a particular character will be playing. While Aston Martin continues to appear as Bond’s personal car in films, there was a time when BMW fiercely competed for presence in Bond films.

BMW became a marketing partner of Bond films with Octopussy (1983).

BMW appeared to support the film throughout—with product placement, production funding or PR campaigns to support the movie release. In 1995, it was rumoured that BMW paid US$ 75 million for Golden Eye (1995) and two other films that followed to replace Aston Martin. BMW paid US$ 25 million for the publicity of Z3 roadster in the placement campaign of Golden Eye. Ford Motor Company the then owner of the Aston Martin brand, had reportedly paid US$ 35 million then to replace BMW as the official Bond car (2001). Bond films have used a number of different versions of Aston Martin DB5s for filming and publicity purpose. One of these cars, which was originally priced at US$ 45,000 in 1970, was sold in January 2006

30

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

at an auction in Arizona for a whopping US$ 290,000.

About Aston Martin’s tie-ins with Bond films, Bob notes, “Though Ford no longer owns Aston Martin, I can confirm that Aston Martin has had a long-standing relationship with the producers of the Bond films and I believe they will maintain that relationship.” On the other hand, separately, Ford Motor Company has worked with the producers of the Bond movies. Producers of the last Bond movie Casino Royale (2006) accepted US$ 14 million from Ford to place its Mondeo in the movie. Further, expecting a huge grab, Ford has negotiated a US$ 36 million deal to place their Ka Zetec Climate model in the new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.

It was rumoured that BMW paid US$ 75 million for Golden Eye (1995) and two other films that followed to replace Aston Martin.

Dirk Roeder Head International Film Marketing Entertainment and Gaming Audi AG

Audi cars have been placed in recent blockbusters like Iron Man, I, Robot etc. What is the strategy behind these placements?

Product placement is an integral part of the Audi communication mix. Therefore, we implement it according to our overall strategy that demonstrates the core attributes of our brand—sporty, sophisticated and most importantly progressive. We are determined to place our cars in movies whose plot and atmosphere allow for an appearance of the car representing these core attributes, and showcasing Audi’s premium quality, exceptional design and progressive performance.

Do car manufacturers have to compete to place their cars in a movie?

There is quite a competition to become part of an interesting production.

However, our attractive product portfolio not only appeals to our customers worldwide but also to studios and directors of major productions. Choosing the productions means, first of all, that we believe in it, and, most importantly, that the car will definitely be presented in a positive way. This last fact alone necessarily makes the placement a success.

How do you want the car placements in films to influence your targeted audience?

We intend to reach the same target audience with the placed model as with the overall strategy of the brand itself. This said, we might reach an even broader audience than we do by means of other marketing instruments. Our customers value exceptional design, premium quality and progressive performance in a car–our placements demonstrates them, in a particularly emotional way, that this is exactly what Audi stands for.

What are the other film industries that provide scope for marketing cars?

As a truly international company, it is vital for us to reach our target audience all over the globe. Therefore, on the one hand we place our brand in productions that appeal to an international target audience. On the other hand, we arrange for product placements in regional film industries in individual markets that match the cultural understanding of the specific market.

How do you foresee the growth of car placement in films during the next few years? Do you see any new trends emerging in terms of promoting cars in films?

Branded Entertainment which includes product placement is just starting to leave footprints. New technologies will change the way we watch TV and how we will be entertained in the future.

“Tagging” is just one exemplary technology that will impact the perception of product placements. It’s already accessible but still widely unknown. The audience will be able to choose placed items and receive additional information on the chosen item while watching a movie. For instance, you love the sun glasses Leo wears in “Matrix”—with one click on the image you can instantly find out where to buy them. You love the car the main character is driving—“tagging” the car on the TV screen enables you to organise a test drive at a dealership nearby.

Branded Entertainment is just starting to leave footprints.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

31

there is no better place to find that than through television and movies. Ford has worked with the producers of the upcoming film and we are delighted to say that you will see Ford vehicles in the movie.

Because we have an agreement with our movie production partners, we often are not allowed to discuss any content of this far in advance of the release. I can say, from what I have seen, it will be another fantastic film and you will see one of our most important Ford models in the film.

Product placement coupled with advertising and marketing has a very positive impact on sales.

Bob Witter Manager Ford Global Brand Entertainment

Ford cars have the highest record of car placements in films during the recent past. What do you think is the reason for this growing presence of Ford cars in films?

Ford is a world-wide icon and one of the most recognised brands. Ford Motor Company’s current vehicles including the Mustang, Edge, Flex, Focus and Escape Hybrid continue the heritage of being iconic cars with mass appeal. Ford has successfully integrated beautiful design with cutting edge technology, and the studios have developed a real fondness for our brand and they know our vehicles can help add character to their story.

32

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Do such car placements guarantee an increase in sales? Can you give an instance?

We believe that coupled with advertising and marketing, product placement has a very positive impact on sales. Of course it is difficult to measure, but on many occasions we have heard of people seeing a Ford vehicle in a television show or movie and going directly to the dealership to ask for that very model.

Can you talk about Ford’s tie-ins with the upcoming Bond film, Quantum of Solace?

Product placements also benefit Ford to have association with popular culture and

Are you also looking at other film industries to place your brands?

Yes we are. The Asian market is very important to us. We are in the very early stages of involvement with the Chinese and other film industries in Asia and we have not yet had any major projects but we certainly are planning on that in the future. We are aggressively expanding our presence in China and have a major manufacturing facility in the Philippines, just to name two examples. It will follow that we will be expanding our efforts to become more involved with Asian based entertainment.

What is the intended influence of placements on your target audience?

We are a global company and we attempt to target a global audience in everything we do. As Ford develops more cars that are sold worldwide, you will see this trend grow. Our target audience also spans quite a wide age range. The primary target would be 18-45, equal male and female, but we also have appeal to all age groups, depending on the vehicle and the role it is placed in for a television show or movie. We hope the influence will keep our cars top-of mind with the viewer and also add to the appeal.

Interview is conducted by Roopna Ravindran, Editorial Associate, Auto Focus Asia

Promotion – A price to pay Car companies pay huge amounts for placement of cars though they do not have any say on the plot of the film.

They cannot even prevent film production companies from placing other cars in their films. Commenting on this, Bob says, “We treat it as a partnership and we try to be as helpful as possible to find just the right Ford vehicle that matches the plot and the personality of the character who will be driving the car. We try not to interfere with their creative and our goal is to make their job easier, not more difficult.” However, they ensure that their brands are not directly associated with alcohol, drug use or any type of graphic violence.

The fate of the film at the box office does not have any influence on the brand. The poor performance of the movie simply means that the time and money invested provide less value for

the company. Film producers appreciate product placement as it basically eases their production costs. Movies can make millions of dollars out of product placements even before they are released.

For example, Die Another Day (2002) garnered US$ 70 million from the product placement business.

Upshots

The partnership of Aston Martin with Bond films and many other large-scale joint ventures as discussed earlier make it explicit that car placement in films have become a potent advertising technique.

The repetitive exhibition of cars in films is expected to create vibrancy in its selling process. There are instances where movie-goers have directly approached the dealership to inquire about the very model that appeared in the film.

Also, such placements further benefit the brands to associate with popular culture. Marketers thus aim to make considerable profit by combining the products of popular culture, films and

cars. An instance would be the huge sale of 35,000 BMW Z3s in the 18 months after the release of Golden Eye. The practice of product placement has grown enormously during the past 20 years as marketers frequently use product placements as part of their promotional campaigns. Global paid product placement grew by 37.2 per cent to US$ 3.36 billion in 2006 and was expected to rise by 30.3 per cent to US$ 4.38 billion in 2007, according to a report released by PQ Media. Film placements comprised 26.4 per cent (or US$ 885.1 million) of global spending in 2006 with a growth of 20.5 per cent in 2007 .

Car manufacturers use product placement to boost sales, but there are always exceptions. Product placement as a stand-alone effort doesn’t guarantee a surge in car sales even if it remains a widely accepted mode of advertisement.

The query remains—Does this persuade movie-goers to buy the car that is being projected in the film? The answer may be a definite yes or no. However, this doesn’t deter car makers from placing their cars in movies and they will continue to feature cars prominently in them.

Car manufacturers are extending their strategies to regional film industries too. As Dirk observes, Audi takes special attention to consider the cultural understanding of the specific market while targeting individual regional markets.

Ford is getting involved with the entertainment based in Asia and is expanding their presence in China and Philippines.

As Bob sees, “Cars will always be an important part of the entertainment industry because the car is central to the daily lifestyle of millions around the world—and as everyone can see, every year more and more people are gaining access to the automobile. I see the vehicle placement in TV and movies as a rapidly expanding area.”

“Star Struck: The Continuing Appeal of Product Placement”, www.chiefmarketer.com, 2007

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

33

I nformation T echnolog y

AUTOSAR ECUs Development solutions

This article describes the model-based development of AUTOSAR application software components through the use of ETAS products RTA, ASCET and INTECRIO.

T

oday, special effort is needed when integrating software components from different suppliers in a vehicle project comprising networks, Electronic Control Units (ECUs) and dissimilar software architectures. While clearly limiting the reusability of automotive embedded software in different projects, this effort also calls for extra work for providing the required fully functional, tested, and qualified software.

By standardising, inter alia, basic system functions and functional interfaces, the AUTOSAR partnership simplifies the joint development of software for automotive electronics, reduce its costs and time-to-market, enhance quality, and facilitates the designing of safety relevant systems.

To reach these goals, AUTOSAR defines an architecture for automotive embedded software. It facilitates easy reuse, exchange, scaling, and integration of those ECU-independent Software Components (SWCs) that implement the functions of the respective application. The abstraction of the SWC environment is called the Virtual Function Bus (VFB). The AUTOSAR platform software implements the VFB in a real ECU. AUTOSAR splits the platform software into: the Runtime Environment (RTE) and the Basic Software (BSW).

The BSW provides communications, I/O, and other functionalities that all SWCs are likely to require e.g. diagnostics and error reporting, or non-volatile memory management.

RTA-RTE and RTA-OS

The RTE provides the interface between software components, BSW modules, and Operating Systems (OS). For interconnecting SWCs, the RTE acts like a telephone switchboard. This is similarly true for components that reside either on single ECUs or networked ECUs interconnected by vehicle buses.

In AUTOSAR, the OS calls the runnable entities of the SWCs through the RTE. RTE and OS control application software execution. The RTA-RTE AUTOSAR Runtime Environment and

Nigel James Tracey Director Product Management (Embedded Software) Software Product Group ETAS, UK

RTA-OS AUTOSAR Operating System extend the RTA product portfolio with support for the key AUTOSAR software modules. Based on AUTOSAR interfaces, third-party basic software modules can be integrated with RTA-RTE and RTA OS. Creating software components

The ASCET development tools from ETAS facilitate design of software architectures and modelling of software components at a functional level. ASCET models clearly

AUTOSAR software component (SWC) communications SWC 1

SWC 2

SWC 3

SWC n

AUTOSAR Interface

AUTOSAR Interface

AUTOSAR Interface

AUTOSAR Interface

Virtual Function Bus (VFB) ECU I

ECU II

ECU m

SWC 2

SWC n

AUTOSAR Interface

AUTOSAR Interface

Runtime Environment (RTE)

RTE

RTE

Basic Software (BSW)

BSW

BSW

SWC 1 AUTOSAR Interface

Vehicle Bus

SWC 3 AUTOSAR Interface

Gateway

Figure 1

34

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

I nformation T echnolog y

Integration of software modules for virtual prototyping Real World Environment

Virtual Environment ASCET Model

SWC

Simulink速 Model

RTA-TRACE

AUTOSAR Interface

AUTOSAR RTE SWC 2

SWC n

AUTOSAR Interface

AUTOSAR Interface

AUTOSAR RTE SWC 2

AUTOSAR RTE Virtual Function Prototype

RTA-TRACE

Rapid Prototyping Module Bypass

SWC n

AUTOSAR AUTOSAR AUTOSAR Interface Interface Interface

Plant Model

AUTOSAR OS

SWC 1

INTECRIO

AUTOSAR OS

SWC 1 AUTOSAR Interface

AUTOSAR OS

INTECRIO

ECU

Vehicle Bus Figure 2

Validating software components

The VFB concept of AUTOSAR opens the road to virtual integration. Because the VFB blurs the ECU borders, software components of different functions can be integrated in the design phase prior to having completed the final mapping to individual ECUs. This means that the interaction of software components integrated by an RTE can be easily tested on a PC running an AUTOSAR OS. INTECRIO provides a powerful environment for prototyping and validating automotive electronic systems. It is capable of integrating behaviour models designed in MATLAB速/Simulink速 and ASCET, as well as C code modules. The new version 3.0 enables the integration of AUTOSAR SWCs with legacy function modules (Figure 2). INTECRIO thus provides for the reuse of existing models and C code during the migration of ECU software to AUTOSAR architectures.

A uthor

separate functional logic, real-time scheduling, parameter values, and the specific implementation on a microcontroller target. This clear separation keeps the number of model variants low during the life cycle of a software function. In addition to an AUTOSAR authoring tool, which provides initial descriptions of the system architecture and AUTOSAR interfaces, ASCET allows defining and implementing the behaviour of AUTOSAR-compliant vehicle functions. The adaptation of existing ASCET models to AUTOSAR does not present a problem because many AUTOSAR concepts can be mapped to interface specifications in ASCET in a similar form. On the whole, it suffices to rework the interface of the respective application to make it AUTOSAR-compliant. As shown in practical demonstrations of adapting older models, the expenditure in terms of time is relatively minor, even with the ASCET version in current use. Effective with the new release V6.0, the ASCET standard product will support AUTOSAR SWC descriptions and the generation of AUTOSAR-compliant SWC production code.

INTECRIO already comprises the RTA-OSEK real-time operating system as an integral part. It ensures target-close behaviour of control function prototypes.

RTA-OSEK is available standalone for Microsoft Windows providing support for virtual prototyping on the PC. The RTA-TRACE software logic analyser can be used to monitor operating system tasks and analyse real-time behaviour.

On the PC as well as for an ETAS rapid prototyping system, INTECRIO V3.0 creates target-close prototypes based on a real AUTOSAR RTE and OS. INTECRIO separates the communications between software components from the prototyping hardware configuration.

Thus, INTECRIO V3.0 is enabled to export the validated RTE configuration in the form of an XML file. An AUTOSAR RTE generator, e.g., RTA-RTE reuses this information to create the RTE of an AUTOSAR ECU.

Nigel James Tracey is the Director of Product Management Embedded Software Products and is the coordinator of AUTOSAR participation and product strategy across ETAS. He holds a doctoral degree on automated software testing for safety-critical applications from the University of York. Nigel has also organised a number of international workshops and published more than 30 papers on embedded, real-time and safety-critical systems.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

35

I nformation T echnolog y

Networked Virtual Environment Platform

For equipment sharing systems of SMEs Networked Virtual Environment (NVE) provides a lowcost, secure and fast analysis tool for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs). This article discusses the development of a general architecture for creating NVEs applicable to equipment sharing systems.

T

he important role of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in an economy is undeniable due to their contribution to the total manufacturing output and employment opportunities. But increasing global competition demands high manufacturing efficiency which dramatically impacts SMEs as they have limited technical capability and lack access to latest technology and equipment such as expensive hardware and software tools, currently being addressed by many research and industrial projects, due to their high capital costs.

Networked manufacturing is one of the manufacturing paradigms that addresses rapid and efficient product development by equipment sharing technique and benefits small and medium sized enterprises, particularly in developing countries. Networked manufacturing is a feasible method to integrate the resources of small and medium sized enterprises group to improve their competitive position. Efficient utilisation of the equipment sharing, distributed in different enterprises is an important concern for networked manufacturing.

36

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

One promising approach is ‘Virtual Environment’ for the design and testing of the response manufacturing systems for changes and upgrades such as implementation of new machines, FMSs, automation equipment, with the objective of reducing time and costs. The advantages of Virtual Environment technology and Virtual Manufacturing can be shared through the internet, which can provide a shared usage for the latest integrated manufacturing facilities.

The main goal of this present work is the conceptualisation, design and development of networked virtual environment platform for supporting both equipment sharing and real-time collaboration among the SMEs. A case study in a die-casting manufacturer company has been performed to demonstrate the operational aspects of the equipment sharing systems.

Proposed platform

Based on the analysis and the review of the state-of-the art on internet-based manufacturing, the proposed platform for equipment sharing systems over the networked virtual environments is based on an open architecture and Client/Server technology (Figure 1). The major benefit

Hamed Farahani Manesh Research Assistant Department of Mechanical Engineering Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Turkey

of client-server technology is that the processing load is shared between client and the server [bearing paper and Pan et al. 1999]. Due to inherent complexity, it is convenient to decompose the proposed platform into simpler components: • Server Side • Client Side Server side

This layer is based on distributed information management systems in internetbased manufacturing (Yin et al. 1999, 2001). The multi-agent technology has been used to exploit equipment sharing systems effectively. Some categories of agents that can do specific activities individually and support any kind of cooperative process together have been identified.

Based on their functionalities, identified agents are classified as follows: The Interface agent (I-agent) creates a user friendly web-based interface, which allows the authorised users to define a project, manage a task, send and receive message. The web browser technology and virtual reality technique have been used for designing the interface.

The Network Communication agent (Net-agent) provides communication services for the whole allied enterprise.

I nformation T echnolog y

Proposed methodology for equipment sharing systems over NVE

Client Side

Allied Enterprise Internet / Intranet

Server Side

Net-agent

Implementation of platform

chosen. This system has been integrated into the web platforms as to be directly accessed by clients through the graphical user interface.

The Database agent (DB-agent) integrates the databases and information of allied enterprises, in other words, the data management is performed via this agent.

The Expert System agent (ES-agent) makes decision with respect to the input information. The input information is the reflection of some requirements from other agents with the feedback of environment state. The decision-making mechanism takes the input information as variables to make decisions on output information and feedback requirements.

The purpose of developing this platform is to provide a comprehensive networked virtual environment in support of equipment sharing systems to improve the utilisation factor and lower the cost of the enterprises group. The developed platform is based on standard technologies applied to J2EE language. Such technologies consist of Java Server Page (JSP) for visualisation of data by creation of HTML pages for data handling and user communication. For the web sever and Servlets container “Apache Jakarta Tomcat 4.0.4� was used. The database module is developed by MYSQL. Through connecting the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) package, the database agent will be able to provide the users with a convenient information-searching mechanism on equipment they require. The development as well as the installation took place on Windows XP Professional Edition operation system. The Java 3-D is used as basis for the visualisation and development of the virtual environments. This system has been integrated into the web platform so as to be directly accessed by users through the graphical user interface.

The communication between the equipment sharing platform and other application is handled through the XML protocol.

Client side

Conclusion

A client can be any program, such as GUI applications, Telnet that request services from a server application. In other words, the client is a system that is used directly by the users to accomplish the communication between the front-end and the platform’s database.

The connection among users complies

Network manufacturing technology combining the advanced net technology and virtual manufacturing technology, is an effective approach to reduce geographical distances and allowed products to be manufactured and marketed on a regional or global basis. This paper presents an equipment sharing systems

I-agent

S-agent

Cooperative Agent Enterprise model, Task model,...

ES-agent

VE-agent

DB-agent

Figure 1

The Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) over the Local/Wide Network (LAN/WAN) is the transport layer protocol used for the oneto-one and reliable connection-oriented exchange of data.

The Security agent (S-agent) carries out the safety inspection for each cooperative application and protects the local and global information resources. It can be a hardware machine and software program.

Security mechanisms such as authentication, authorisation, security auditing and administration, therefore should be established for distributed information management systems.

The Cooperative agent (C-agent) is assigned for finding the copartners for specific projects in allied enterprises and planning the task available to copartners.

Equipment sharing is the foundation of cooperative agent.

The Virtual Environment agent (VE-agent) provides the portable and customisable system with the set of the comprehensive functions that facilitates virtual collaboration for shared Equipment. In order to achieve this goal, OpenGL and Java 3-D have been

with the browser user interface which allows the exploitation of all net-place capabilities by using any demanded web browser. Clients are connected to servers via the Internet. This connection may be via leased line, dial-up, wireless or etc.

A computer system is used to perform a workstation for each client.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

37

CaseStudy

I nformation T echnolog y

Equipment sharing systems for Die-casting machines Based on our previous research results, Die-casting machine has been considered as a case study in order to demonstrate the benefits of equipment sharing systems over the networked virtual environment. Die castings are among the highest volume, mass-produced items manufactured by the metalworking industry, and they can be found in thousands of consumers, commercial and industrial products. In Die-casting industry, there is a large spectrum of die casting machines (280T – 1600T) and cooperative machines such as Melting Equipment, Surface Finishing, Trimming Machine, Calibration Machines, and Inspection Machines. Generally a small and medium sized enterprise would not invest in a costly die casting machine involving familiarisation cost for a

short dated task. Due to such difficulties virtual equipments are employed to simulate the performance of the unused equipment. Users can find proper equipment with regard to both the performance and cost by running the virtual equipment module on Internet to visually simulate the performance. The virtual equipment is varied according to the different real equipment. The virtual die casting and cooperative machines are simulated and optimised in a vision-rich virtual environment, and interferences in real time using the web-based real-time rendering technology. It can also be used to train operators on new machines to help increase productivity. The interface and general structure of the developed system are shown in Figure 2.

Data Server

HTTP Server

MySQL Server Rule Base

Web Server (Apache Jakarta Tomcat 4.0.4) Decision Making Module Component Knowledge

VR Database

Component Relationship

Constraints on Properties

Virtual Equipment Module Die1 Casting

Die1 Casting

VR Visualiser

Calibration machine

Trimming Machine

VR Model Builder

VR Environment

Server Side

Structure of developed sharing system for die-casting

Visualiser

HTML Web Browser (IE 5.0) User 1

User M

Figure 2

38

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

• Learning the implementation of different equipments (education) • Intelligent decision making based on fuzzy logic.

A uthor

over the networked virtual environment that benefits small and medium sized enterprises. The platform’s integration into virtual environment enables the interaction of users with the virtual equipments that efficient evaluation the manufacturing where the user intervention is crucial.

The benefits of virtual capabilities of the developed platform include: • Multi-user interaction and visualisation • Real-time collaboration on same equipment

Client Side

Internet

Finally, the system realises automation and intelligence of equipment sharing to increase equipment utilisation, cost cutting, and improve competitiveness of the integrated enterprises alliance.

Hamed Farahani Manesh is a research assistant at Mechanical Engineering Department, Eastern Mediterranean University. His research focusses on the requirements analysis, design and development of Holonic Manufacturing Systems. His group carries out research and development activities for industry-oriented projects of IMS, Equipment Sharing over the networked manufacturing and Virtual Reality in modelling, and simulations of agile, re-configurable manufacturing systems, design of de-centralised manufacturing control etc.

I nformation T echnolog y

Developing Universal Standards for RFID AIDC (Automatic Identification / Data Collection) standards are more critical today than ever before and non-intuitive human aspects of data collection could prevent us from finding maximal benefits in developing business cases for use of RFID.

M

onthly industry trade publications provide topics of interest and challenge about RFID applications. On one side, we have articles of hope and promise while on the other hand, we remain sceptical within our own industries as we search for the proverbial “ROI� justification. Most articles struggle to provide clear direction in just what determines the relative ROI for RFID applications. Unfortunately, the large-scale adoption of RFID applications that one finds in the animal tracking and smart card industries is not replicated in any other industry. Where is the disconnection? What is the current condition for the automotive industry and the tyre industry?

Is there a fundamental problem in finding positive manufacturing ROI for RFID? The basis of the problem

It is the automotive industry that began using RFID applications when no one in the world imagined it could be as successful as it is today. The automotive industry has been the leader in RFID for over two decades. Beginning with the Allen Bradley’s RFID modules for paint system conveyors first used by OEMs in the late 1970s, followed by keyless automobile entry and key fob security for ignition keys, automotive applications for RFID have been significant and continue to grow.

More recently, however, the tyre industry has taken the lead for item level

standards for RFID and its applications in the automotive industry. For the tyre industry, the automotive industry represented a customer group which imposed a variety of Automatic Identification and Data Collection (AIDC) requirements (problems). For example tyres were and continue to be marked with red, white and green lines, 1D and 2D bar codes, yellow and white spots, green arrows and many other coded identifiers. Some of these AIDC solutions were based on ISO and industry standards while many were not. The basic problem is that even the applications that were standards-based were not used uniformly across the automotive industry. Add the emergence of EPC (Electronic Product Code) for retail RFID and Class 0 and Class 1 RFID requirements potentially impacting tyres, and the AIDC world even more appeared threatening and RFID represented potentially the greatest threat. Today, with the new emphasis on global energy and resource conservation, the tyre community, concluded that RFID needed to be harnessed and managed as an AIDC tool.

If there is a need for globally effective tyre RFID then only one standard should be followed.

One world, one standard

The tyre community convened representatives from all organisations connected to tyres and asked them to collectively design a single worldwide RFID and data

Patrick F King Global Electronics Strategist Michelin Tyres USA

standard for tyres. The meetings in 2005 included representatives from automotive, retail, aerospace, military, ISO and EPC. One very practical point that they all concurred was that RFID electronics and standards were being driven by retail and global commerce, which forced the group to act as influencer rather than creator while framing the standards. They opined that the retail community had not seriously considered many of the requirements of the manufacturers and supply chain logistics in their first efforts to create standards. Figure 1 shows the choices available for RFID technology and how the tyre selection tracks with the retail choice of Ultra High Frequency (UHF).

The seminal tyre standard that resulted from the collaborative efforts Alignment with retail industry

Tyre UHF Retail / SC UHF LF Animal Tags HF Smart Cards 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 Relative Scale of Distance in Metres or Dollars Read Distance

Price Figure 1

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

39

I nformation T echnolog y

Impact of standard RFID linked to Standards

Eight Tyre Standards

One World Standard ISO6c/Gen2/ISO 17367

Relative Numbers

12 10 8 6 4 2 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Years 1999 to 2010 Read Speed

Price

of the team was the AIAG B-11 Rev 6 Tyre and Wheel Data Standard. The core of this standard aligns completely with EPC Gen 2 and ISO 18000-6c standards. The global benefit derived from this tyre standard spurred the creation of a “non-tyre” version, which was adopted by the automotive industry as the AIAG B-11 Rev 7 RFID Data Standard. Today, the automotive industry is working to combine standards and has even formed a global community Joint Automotive Industry (JAI) Forum. The most pressing uniform standard for RFID being worked on by this organisation is a standard for returnable containers.

Figure 2 graphically demonstrates the immediate benefit of having a single standard where time required to capture data (speed), size of electronics available and their cost are improved significantly and are expected to continue to improve.

Human aspects of data collection

IHM, Interface Homme Machine (man-machine interface) is a relatively new field of research and a new name for a very old practice. Basically, within the field of AIDC we are now focussed on not only how data is collected, but also how it is best managed as it finds its way to a practical use by humans.

40

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Figure 2

Many times RFID is recommended to be part of the “future factory design” but when funding becomes available, we always rely on the experts to design the new factory and they resort to familiar methods. The truth is that process improvements need to be done in both “old and new” factories. Consider the following abstract example as a way to understand the question, “Why do we not see the potential process or business benefit immediately?”

Real test case

Imagine that your job requires you to observe and count some key features in manufacturing. Now imagine a person who, dressed as a gorilla walks in front of you, pounds his chest, and then exits and you do not notice him.

That story sounds very strange but that is exactly the exercise demonstrated by Prof Daniel Simons of the University of Illinois. (http://viscog.beckman.uiuc. edu/gafs/demos/15.html) A uthor

Size of Chip

I took just this test and failed. I was asked to count the number of times students in white t-shirts bounced a basketball and ignore the students with black t-shirts. I did just that and did not notice the gorilla. There is clearly a very elementary lesson in this: even in the most diligent effort potentially key points are missed. If this is true then how can we forecast ROI and future benefits that we frankly cannot see or imagine?

There is a second lesson that is far less intuitive and yet is far more insidious. When you realise that you did not see something as blatant as a gorilla directly in front of you and you watch the video for a second time and are asked to be relaxed and more generally attentive, there is a sense of shock and an immediate suspicion that the two videos are not identical. Imagine the instinctive conclusion that someone switched the videos. This is an insidious aspect of human nature. Generally, our first reaction is to defend ourselves and place blame. Instead of saying, “Wow, how could I have possibly failed to notice a gorilla”, we consider the possibility that we were deceived. So the first order of business would be to manage observations instead of wasting time proving that we were not tricked.

Conclusion

If we accept that humans have tendencies to fight change and even avoid observing opportunities for taking advantage of change, then we must trust the process of standards and adopt standards based solutions for process and business enhancement. Assuming human behaviour is relatively universal then the output of the standards process is key to any ROI analysis.

Patrick F King is the leader for Global Electronics Strategies at Michelin. He was the founder of Technologies ROI, LLC consulting within the Supply Chain Industry and VP Engineering for Marconi Infochain an ASP and RFID solutions provider. He has 30 patents in the fields of Auto identification, RFID, Imaging, Lasers and Printing. Patrick, a member of Global AIDC 100 and Michelin’s representative to EPC, was the recipient of the AIAG Outstanding Achievement Award in 2007.

I nformation T echnolog y

On-board Systems

From infotainment to eDucation The growing satellite navigation systems market provides consumers and content manufacturers with plenty of avenues.

T

he market for satellite navigation systems has grown tremendously in the last five years. In Europe alone, sales have increased from 2.6 million in 2004 to over 20 million in 2007. The prospects for further growth are optimistic. Canalys is anticipating annual sales of over 40 million units by 2010.

The continued development has seen a shift in the relative proportions of the different types of navigation unit.

Whereas the market for satellite navigation systems started purely with on-board systems, portable units have played a vital part in the growing demand since 2005.

This has been accompanied by a progressive shift of importance from hardware to software. A high quality system no longer needs to be built in—as in the early years of satellite navigation. Instead, the Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs) have been brought up to the standard of the on-board systems. Even modern smartphones and laptops have ever-improving specifications, which enable them to use high quality navigation software.

The software thus becomes the crucial driver of innovation as it is now hardly subject to the limitations of the hardware any more.

The same applies to content, which is no longer limited to images and text.

Content which is communicated via navigation systems, is reaching the same technical standards as other audio-visual media such as computers or television sets. It can also be provided in a great

variety of forms and does not have to be limited to the classic route mapping and points of interest. These advances open up enormous scope for innovation. A current example of an innovative development of navigation-based products is the concept of Travel Scouting.

Opportunities for content providers

Until a few years ago iPUBLISH was still a classic provider of route-finding programmes for on-board satellite navigation. The company’s orders came from the automobile industry and the system manufacturers. There was hardly any direct contact with the end user. The reason for this was that the content had to conform to the requirements of the relevant system.

The systems differed not only between individual manufacturers and makes but MERIAN scout NAVIGATOR as a Personal Travel Assistant (PTA)

Experiences (Audio visual staging) Orientation (Travel guide) Finding the Destination (Navigation)

Carsten Leininger Managing Director iPUBLISH GmbH Germany

even within the same manufacturer’s brands and models. An Audi, for example, had a different navigation system as compared to a Volkswagen.

The business of content was therefore a B2B service which was strongly customer-led. The service-provider had very little free scope for shaping the content. The primary concern was to meet the technical requirements and restrictions imposed on the service provider.

Innovation was driven mainly by on-board technology. This situation only changed with the rise in portable navigation units because they were purchased directly by the end customer. In addition to quality and price, design and content have also become important criteria in the choice of purchase. Against this background, iPUBLISH took the decision to directly enter the satellite navigation systems market.

At the end of 2007 the company introduced the first Personal Travel Assistant (PTA) in the world—the MERIAN scout NAVIGATOR. The unit fully integrates navigation, travel guide and audio guide in one system (Figure 1).

The history of innovation is a mixture of conceptual daring and pragmatic necessity. MERIAN is an established print medium brand of travel guides in Germany. Its publishers already had the idea for an electronic travel guide at the end of the 1980s. However, putting it into practice in an integrated form, always failed due to technical reasons.

Even when the market for this kind of product was obviously pending, there

Figure 1

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

41

I nformation T echnolog y

Moving to Being at Destination Destination

Figure 2

were no hardware and software providers capable of implementing the idea with the required quality and efficiency standards. The publisher therefore took matters into its own hands and gave its electronic enterprise the task of developing a PTA. In order to entirely exploit the future demand, the business portfolio was geared to cover the whole field of electronic travel guidance and advice (Travel Scouting) (Figure 2). Drivers who had come to regard satellite navigation in the meantime as an accepted on-board feature are only one strategically relevant target group in the context of this extended content provision.

Range of contents on-board

A market survey conducted by iPUBLISH in 2006 indicates that there are two basic types of drivers on German motorways, where they are generally not restricted by speed limits. “Break reducers” strive to get to their destination as quickly as possible (about one-third). “Stress avoiders“, on the other hand, attribute great importance to enjoying a relaxed trip. Among them you will also find a large number of the subspecies “Experience searcher“, who like to see nearby places of interest and beautiful landscapes en route the resort and at the resort itself. Almost 77 per cent of the interviewees shared this attitude, which leads to the conclusion that even a considerable number of “break reducers“ turn into “experience searchers“ once their holidays have started. It comes as

42

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

The navitainment concept

Navitainment can be described as an intelligent travel companion. It is an essential element of the Personal Travel Types of contents on-board Infotainment (CD player)

Navitainment (PTA)

Information (Radio)

Navigation (PNA)

General

Specific Figure 3

e pe Xpl cia ori l r ng ou te s )

Being at Domicile

Intelligent navitainment

(s

“Net-Users”

(m e D or uca e c ti on on te n t)

Internet (Laptop)

“Drivers”

Emotion

Car Audio Devices (Navigation)

t e n os) em de cit vi eX ries, to (s

“Tourists”

Opportunities to develop new applications and to create new business

e nc s) rie ide pe gu eX ent v (e

Personal Assistants (PDA, PNA)

Ratio

Mobile Phones (Smart phone)

no surprise, therefore, that around 80 per cent of the respondents said that they would very much appreci“City hoppers” ate the launch of a Personal Travel Assistant to provide them with customised travel information in the shape of audio texts, three-dimensional maps and inspiring images—thus emerged a target group that wishes to benefit from the advanTouring the Destination tages of infotainment as navitainment.

Navitainment is an innovative onboard content feature of which there are four basic types (Figure 3).

In the past, the vast range of information broadcast via the radio stations resulted in the development of infotainment, which offers entertainment according to personal preference, for example via the CD player. With navigation, an additional specific field of application has been created for routing purposes. This is currently being emotionally charged by means of content enrichment.

A uthor

Strategic relevant target groups

Figure 4

Assistant and composed of eDucation, eXcitement, eXploring and eXperience.

In contrast to traditional PNDs which are predominantly used in vehicles, a PTA also meets the information and entertainment requirements of tourists and cityhoppers.

For this reason, its overall range of onboard features is somewhat limited. Its outstanding benefit while on the road consists of eDucation, i.e. the transfer of valuable knowledge in an easy-going, entertaining manner. The device holds in store audio recordings with information on arts, culture and history. It also tells its users about the relevant geographic location and the locals while displaying atmospheric images. Consequently, every car ride can become an adventure trip.

This also holds true for children and youth for whom long trips could be boring.

The intelligent navitainment offers manufacturers and service providers new ways of generating revenue (Figure 4).

The opportunities are not restricted by national boundaries. Nowadays, travelling has a global dimension for innovative concepts and partnerships. This inspires the consistently growing navigation market time and time again.

Carsten Leininger is the Managing Director of iPUBLISH GmbH, a Travel Scout Company and a digital spin-off of the GANSKE VERLAGSGRUPPE. He is responsible for the business development in the field of virtual travel guidance and consulting. Before joining iPUBLISH in 2001, Carsten was a Project Manager with Jungheinrich in the field sales direction and strategy & planning.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

43

M aterials

Recycled Plastics

Opportunities and challenges Recent technology advancements have opened the door for automotive manufacturers to seriously consider recycled plastics for new automotive applications.

R

eduction in vehicle weight improves fuel economy. Current fuel prices and speculations on what they may be in the future support increased use of lighter materials such as plastics to replace heavier materials in order to gain fuel economy. Plastics manufactured from end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) is a possible way of meeting the increased demand for high performance plastics while also reducing the environmental impact by utilising a valuable resource currently perceived as “waste”.

Regulatory influences

The European Directive 2000/53/EC and, more recently, 2005/64/EC have outlined the objectives along with their staggered implementation dates with an aim to: • increase the recovery of resources from ELV via design for recycling • increase the amount of recycled material used in new vehicles to further develop the recycling industry • make car manufacturers financially responsible to meet the objectives • mandate car manufacturers to present recycling strategies and, lastly • ensure that new models are 85 per cent recyclable.

In order to meet the objective of 85 per cent recyclability in new models, plastics have to be recovered and, more specifically, it is anticipated that some of the recovery needs to come from automotive shredder residue.

44

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Vehicle manufacturers may currently view the European Directives with associated compliance dates as a significant challenge and risk to their business.

However, for others who have seen how the implementation of Directive 2002/96/EC on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) has facilitated development of the collection infrastructure and recovery of resources for use in new products, this opens a window of opportunity to the additional procurement in the near future.

Other countries such as the United States also recycle ELVs, but their primary objective is to recover the metal. Efforts to recover plastics and other marketable constituents are slowly increasing since the amount of metal found in ELVs is decreasing creating more automotive shredder residue that has to be landfilled preventing municipalities from attaining landfill diversion goals.

The “hidden” opportunity

In the European Union, it is estimated that nearly 8 million vehicles are recycled annually, and in the US the number is even higher at nearly 11 million vehicles per annum, where nearly 25 per cent of these vehicles by weight are non-metallic materials that aren’t recovered. Automotive shredder residue, sometimes referred to as shredder residue, is the non-metallic or “fluff” stream stemming from automated, mechanical recovery of metal from ELVs (Figure 1). The volume of shredder residue is utterly staggering, presenting

Darren F Arola Global Director Sales and Marketing MBA Polymers, Inc. USA

Shredder residue from ELVs

Figure 1

not only a tremendous opportunity for sustainable plastics manufacturing in the form of availability of raw material, but also a significant challenge due to the complexity in material recovery.

Based on current vehicle recycling rates, the amount of plastics (currently estimated at 100 kg per vehicle and steadily increasing) produced from ELV recycling is nearly 800,000 tons per annum in the EU and over one million tons in the US. Apart from some of the large plastic components from vehicles that are manually dismantled, the plastics within automotive shredder residue become waste and have been historically landfilled. It is only recently that mixed shredder residue has been considered for energy recovery. Manual dismantling of large plastic parts could possibly fall by the wayside as economical and effective methods of plastics recovery from shredder residue can be demonstrated to the marketplace and adopted. Developing countries and growing automotive markets, such as China and India, may continue manual dismantling of ELVs

M aterials

for longer periods than other countries since manual recovery of marketable commodities from durable goods is the norm due to low labour rates and lack of technology. It may take stringent government regulations aimed at protecting the environment and promoting safe work conditions in order for these practices to subside.

Advanced technology

Recovering materials from shredder residue is extremely challenging. One needs to consider the complexity of shredder residue (Figure 1) to understand some of the apparent obstacles to material recovery. Shredder residue comprises the following general categories in various percentages: plastics, rubber, wood, foam, textiles, glass, metal and dirt. The “quality” and relative percentage of each material type depends on the metal recyclers’ technology and practices, some of which are dictated by the country or region where the metal recycler operates.

Figure 2 illustrates the composition of a real-world sample of shredder residue from a European ELV recycler analysed

by MBA Polymers Inc. (MBA). This is typical of what is available today from operations that have not pursued additional separation of the mixed, mostly non-metallic commodities stream.

Residual metal within shredder residue is common since metal recovery is not 100 per cent effective.

Analysing samples from various metal recyclers throughout the EU and North America, MBA has found that plastics constitute 10 to 50 per cent of weight of the raw shredder residue. For a typical plastics recycler, tackling a complex mixture with a low plastics composition requires expertise outside of their normal industry focus. This fact has negatively impacted recovery efforts. To make the venture feasible, considerable effort to upgrade the raw shredder residue to enrich the plastics fraction at the suppliers’ location for plastics manufacturing should be pursued. This reduces raw material transportation costs, increases the

recovery or yield of plastics from the plastics recovery operation and helps eliminate the need for additional capital equipment investment for plastics recovery, all of which contribute to facilitate economic viability.

MBA has focussed on the use of advanced technologies to achieve success in sustainable plastics manufacturing from WEEE and ELV shredder residue.

A number of non-plastic and plastic separation technologies are employed to incrementally enrich the plastic content in shredder residue and to separate the plastics by type and even by grade so that they meet property requirements needed to replace virgin resins. Today, MBA has three operations: Guangzhou, China; Kematen/Ybbs, Austria; Richmond, California, and is working on a fourth facility, which is a joint venture with European Metal Recycling Ltd., in Europe scheduled to open in 2009 MBA is increasing resin capacity through new plants and forging a global product line to service customers on various continents.

Very few, if any, sustainable plastics manufacturers offer both recycling and resin supply services in Asia, North America and Europe simultaneously.

MBA’s facilities process shredder residue mainly from WEEE recyclers, although some is from ELV recyclers.

MBA’s newest facility will process shredder residue from ELVs. Both sources of raw material are mixtures of styrenics such as ABS and HIPS, PP and other plastics, but the relative ratio of the constituents is different due to the large number of PP applications in vehicles compared to electronic equipment. Plastics

recovered from ELVs may be most suitable for use in new automotive applications although there are numerous consumer goods applications for both commodity and high performance grades of PP, ABS and HIPS. Sustainable plastics

The concerns regarding volume, quality, consistency in material property and environmental responsibility have been some of the hurdles in introducing sustainable materials into the existing markets.

The huge volume of plastics present in the shredder residue available for recycling presents a great opportunity to the manufacturers of sustainable plastics.

With nearly 1.8 million tons of plastics per annum generated from ELV recycling in the EU and US markets combined, the supply of raw material will never be a major concern. There have been some technical hurdles in the process of recovery of plastics from complex mixtures such as shredder residue, but are now being addressed by incorporating advanced technologies.

The quality of plastic is benchmarked by what is in common use today. The new material with unique properties is generally not preferred. Only those materials, which meet all the current performance requirements of the application without compromising product performance or design changes, are allowed. Efforts should be focussed at providing high performance resins that meet customer expectations, supplying datasheets and communicating important material characteristics using standard plastic testing equipment and practising industry-standard

Composition of a real-world sample of shredder residue from ELVs 16%

Fines (<3mm)

2%

Other

11%

21%

Plastics

13%

Rubber

Metal and Wires

7%

Wood

31%

Foam and Textiles Figure 2

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

45

M aterials

plastics. Their long-term stability in an application such as a vehicle, and their impact on ELV recycling if incorporated into new vehicles are not fully understood because of their different physical properties and characteristics. Moreover, their overall eco-friendliness has been a matter of debate as they are a â&#x20AC;&#x153;newâ&#x20AC;? material and require existing resources, not waste, to make. It would seem much more prudent to begin with what is in use today and readily available than to switch to other materials just yet.

Conclusion

46

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

manufacturing practices should have less of an impact on the environment compared to current industry practices.

Recycling technologies that consume less energy and are more eco-friendly when compared to virgin resin manufacture should be adopted. MBA plants use a combination of air, water and mechanical recycling technologies to manufacture materials. They consume only a fraction of the energy on a per kilogram basis compared to virgin while also conserving water.

An important distinction for plastics manufactured from ELV and WEEE shredder residue is that it requires very few considerations to be re-incorporated into new products because it was not only qualified, but also specified for the application in its original form as virgin resin. If plastics manufactured from ELVs and WEEE can meet the same performance requirements as virgin plastics used in automotive applications today, there should be fewer obstacles to its reuse compared to alternative materials.

Biopolymers and bio-based polymers have also been proposed for various applications as alternatives to strictly petroleum-based A uthor

quality practices such as ISO9001:2000 at a minimum.

Manual recovery is subject to both quality and material property consistency concerns due to the subjective nature of the sorting methodology; incorrectly identified plastics and non-plastics alike may result in the contamination of the product stream. If there is no identification technology to reveal this contamination or separation technology to remove it, there is a possibility of variation in batch-to-batch quality.

However, these sources have been able to meet the requirements of select applications, but it is hard to determine how manual recovery can be sustainable in the future if you consider the development of end-of-life manufacturing practices for other commodities such as metal that employ technology for large-scale recovery. Although one would think that starting with shredder residue the possibility of variation in product quality is even greater, the reverse is true. Advanced technology enables objective analysis and separation of constituents in a controlled manner that, coupled with established quality practices, facilitates uniformity and consistency of the recovered material. Stability in important parameters such as melt flow rate (MFR), impact strength and tensile strength within a shipment, and from shipment-to-shipment, is possible.

Environmental responsibility is of utmost importance. Sustainable

Sustainable plastics manufacturing has its challenges, especially when valuable resources, not previously recovered, are considered waste. Recovery is not believed to be possible and there are doubts regarding the availability and quality of plastics from such sources. Considerable effort in educating key stakeholders is necessary to further develop the infrastructure for recovery and to prove that what was not possible before is not necessarily true today.

Material recyclers need to actively participate in policy discussions and educate policy makers to help facilitate wide-spread development of sustainable plastics manufacturing from waste streams.

From our vantage point, the future is very bright for many stakeholders associated with the automotive industry. People who are willing to embrace change and not get caught up in the minutiae of policies aimed at recovering and facilitating sustainable manufacturing practices will also see that there are great social and environmental benefits for all. *Note: Portions of this work were originally presented at the Third World Automotive Congress Plastics in Motion 2008, 14-18 May, 2008, Corinthia Towers Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic.

Darren Arola is the Global Director of Sales and Marketing for MBA Polymers, Inc. where he has held numerous roles over the past 11 years. He also manages product and application development projects with plastic processors and durable goods manufacturers.

He holds Ph.D and B.S. in Chemical Engineering and has published many professional papers and presentations.

M aterials

Hybrid Structural Parts New assembly and improved performance This article demonstrates the benefits of using glassreinforced thermoplastic inserts instead of steel inserts and also explains the creation of a new assembly technique for the manufacturing of lightweight hybrid structures.

L

oad-bearing lightweight structures, which are safer and stronger than the current in-use structures, play a key role in the development of mobility and energy technologies. Hybrid modules consisting of plastic ribs and metal inserts combine the structural advantages of both materials in order to improve the net performance with relatively less weight.

Material selection and combination, processing parameters and construction measures strongly affect the mechanical performance of these structures and their behaviour under different mechanical and thermal loads. Steel sheet had been considered as a conventional insert for plastic-metal hybrid structures. Since serious global environmental problems are caused by automobiles emission such as COx, NOx and greenhouse effect; further reduction in the weight of motor vehicles is strongly recommended. This is essential not just for environmental consideration, but also for the reduction in energy consumption. Based on this need, further development of lightweight modules had been accomplished with the aim to have high relative strength,

low cost, low energy consumption and compatibility with complex engineering structures. Replacing the metal insert with a high performance sheet material made of thermoplastic matrix, a considerable improvement of the specific lightweight performance could be achieved depending on an appropriate material choice, right dimensioning and optimum construction.

Ernst Schmachtenberg Head Polymer Technology (LKT) Ines K端hnert Head Thermoplastic Processing Department Ahmad Al-Sheyyab Research Assistant Thomas M端ller Research Assistant Chair of Polymer Technology University of Erlangen-Nuremberg Germany

Manufactured conventional U-profile hybrid carriers

Experimental approach

Metal sheets and glass-reinforced thermoplastic prepregs have been used as insert materials for hybrid specimens / structures with an injection molded rib-pattern. Nowadays, steel inserts are considered as a conventional insert.

Based on this fact, steel sheet has been used as a reference in order to make proper comparison and to analyse the performance of the new type of insert materials. In order to obtain good adhesion to the rib structure and material compatibility, polyamide-6 with 30 wt.-% chopped glass fibre have been combined with polyamide-based glassreinforced prepregs (TEPEX101 and

Ribs Configuration

Positive Connections

Figure 1

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

47

M aterials

Mechanical behaviour of the hybrid carriers with glass-fabric reinforced inserts under torsion and bending loading conditions (diagonal ribs) 200

160

120

80

40

0 20

40

60

Torsion Angle

10000

80

0.2

100

0

20

[ยบ]

40

60

Torsion Angle

30

Steel 0.75 mm RG (PA66) 2 mm FG (PA66) 0.65 mm

6000

4000

2000

80

100

[ยบ]

Steel 0.75 mm RG (PA66) 2 mm FG (PA66) 0.65 mm

25 Force / Weight [N/g]

8000

Force [N]

0.4

0.0 0

20 15 10 5

0

0 0

4

8

12

Bending Deflection

TEPEX102). Furthermore, polyamide resins were used for hybrid structures with metal inserts.

On an experimental basis, two hybrid carriers have been manufactured and tested. For the investigation of the lightweight performance of thermoplastic-based inserts, one batch of conventional hybrid carriers was manufactured, (Figure 1) through a long chain process which includes five steps (pre-heating, preforming, trimming, preparation and injection molding). The second batch

48

Steel 0.75 mm RG (PA66) 2 mm FG (PA66) 0.65 mm

0.6 Moment / Weight [N.m/g]

Moment M [N.m]

0.8

Steel 0.75 mm RG (PA66) 2 mm FG (PA66) 0.65 mm

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

16

20

0

[mm]

of hybrid carriers was manufactured through a new short chain process (InMould-Forming) where the production is done in one step.

Lightweight performance

Hybrid parts that are manufactured using prepreg inserts and short fibre-reinforced thermoplastic ribs have considerable advantages over conventional plastic / metal hybrid parts. Major advantages include high lightweight performance, short production cycle and strong adhe-

4

8

12

Bending Deflection

16 [mm]

20 Figure 2

sion strength between the prepreg insert and injection molded material. These carriers have been produced in a first approach by the conventional manufacturing cycle (preheating, pre-forming, trimming, preplacing and injection molding).

The plastic / prepreg hybrid carriers have shown outstanding mechanical behaviour under torsion loading, but lower stiffness under bending (Figure 2). With the RG (PA66) prepreg insert of 2mm thickness, the

M aterials

weight-specific ultimate force was significantly higher. The results indicate that the lower modulus of the thermoplastic-based inserts is effectively acting on the stiffness of the hybrid structure under bending, but not under torsion loading. The higher specific strength of the prepreg inserts seems to be present in the mechanical behaviour of the hybrid structures leading to higher loading capability under bending as well as under torsion loading conditions.

The mechanical performance of a hybrid structure is dependent on the insertsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; strength and stiffness, the stiffness of the ribs and the strength of the joint between the components. With prepreg inserts, a good adhesion can be achieved between the prepreg and injection molded thermoplastic. On the contrary, metal inserts had poor adhesion between the metal sheet and injection molded thermoplastic. The mechanical capability of steel often cannot be used to the full extent, since the limiting factor is the strength of the joint. Therefore, plastic / prepreg hybrid parts perform very well in a hybrid structure. Due to their lower density, they give at least equal, or most often improved mechanical characteristics than that of steel structures.

In-mold forming â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A new promising assembly technique

Process integration and cycle-time shortening has been investigated through two main manufacturing techniques. In the first one, in order to eliminate the step of insert shaping in a press machine, a new technique has been developed where the insert sheet preheating and forming are done in the same process cycle. The second technique was to create integrated joints between hybrid components in the mold directly by utilising melt pressure and heat. This new technique eliminates the preparation step which is normally established to form the insert and to perform the required holes for the mechanical joints.

Main aspects to be considered during the production of plastic / prepreg hybrid

structures include the heat balance of the entire process, the formability of the preheated semi-finished fabric as well as the influence of the geometry on the part quality. The forming of the thermoplastic glass-reinforced prepreg during closing of the mold is considered as a process engineering and design challenge. In order to investigate the thermal and geometrical parameters, which influence forming process, a modular hybrid carrier was designed. The woven type and fibre content have a strong effect on the forming behaviour and the processing parameters which must be correlated with each other. In addition to the forming model, characterisation of the used fabric materials was conducted on a laboratory scale (rheological and mechanical tests, differential scanning calorimetry analysis). Objectives of these analyses were to study the thermal behaviour of the fabric sheet especially the phase and viscosity change at elevated temperatures.

The preheated glass fabrics were transferred into the injection molding machine and preplaced between the mold elements (injection and ejection sides) (Figure 3). For the manufacturing process, two key points were adjusted, the handling system before the injection molding step and the trimming of the finish product at the end of the cycle.

For the handling function, a flexible preheated frame was integrated with the molding machine. In order to achieve the manufacturing in one step, the mold cavities were formed with sharp edges at the corresponding location so as to fulfill the trimming function. In application fields and due to the abrasive behaviour of the stiff glass fibres, this pinch edge should be fabricated from hardened steel and to be changeable after specific production cycles if needed.

In-Mold Forming process leads to a significant difference in filling of the mold cavity and forming the injection molded part. Due to the viscous behaviour of the preheated matrix thermoplastic, penetration of the injection molded ribs through the fabric insert

Mold elements used for the preplacing, forming, overmolding and trimming of the prepreg insert in one step

Mold ejection element

Fixing at the mold bars

Mold injection element

Effective preheating zone Mold cavities

Integrated pinch edge

Figure 3

takes place. This action causes a nonconventional filling behaviour (Figure 4). The melt starts penetrating through the insert fabric matrix material at the flange wall and clasp section before filling the ribs cavity. This non-conventional

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

49

M aterials

Filling behaviour by In-mold forming process

Filling: 17%

Filling: 38%

Melt Penetration Filling: 100% Integrated Clinch Joint

Figure 4

filling behaviour leads from one side to very strong adhesion strength between the insert and ribs components, which is generally not observed in multisteps manufacturing process. Besides, this behaviour leads to a change in the adjusted fibre orientation and material composition in addition to the change of the formed weld lines.

Figures 4 (right-down) shows a section of the manufactured part which presents the penetration of the ribs melt through the inserts side walls as well as the creation of an integrated clinch joint at the bottom base. This penetration was formed without any significant defect

or damage of the fabric or its fibres.

Further, an inhomogeneous flow of the viscous matrix thermoplastic into the ribs was noticed. Insert and ribs components with different colours were used to enable monitoring and investigating of this behaviour.

Transfer of concept into application-oriented structures

Currently, there is no hybrid part in series production, which is manufactured from prepreg inserts in automotive industry. This is due to the complexity involved in processing of such materials in series production size. As a future

Steering column connection hybrid structure

Figure 5

50

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

look, the In-mold forming technique represents a breakthrough in processing of such innovative parts. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the IMF-process, a steering column connection was manufactured after conducting detailed modelling and experimental investigations (Figure 5). This super lightweight hybrid structure was produced, in less than 60 seconds and in one manu-facturing step. Manufacturing of this part starts with the preheating of the thermoplastic-based sheet using UV-radiators which heat the insert sheet to the required temperature that assures optimum form-ability after transferring it into the mold. In the manufacturing process, the maximum forming degree of the prepreg should not be exceeded at any point over the form structure. The forming behaviour of the woven structure was investigated prior to the building of the injection mold.

Conclusion

A considerable improvement of lightweight performance could be achieved by replacing the conventional steel insert sheets with thermoplastic-based inserts. These inserts have higher specific mechanical properties as well as the advantage of anisotropic mechanical and thermal properties which can be utilised in establishing proper design and geometry according to each specific application.

The newly developed In-Mold Forming process has considerable potential for use in a cost-effective series production. It can be applied in many industrial fields especially in the automotive industry where lightweight performance with adequate load-bearing function is required. The main innovation of this new technique is the possibility to integrate several process steps in one, thereby shortening the production cycle-time. IMF-process also gives the freedom of design which enables the forming of integrated functions manufacturing of complex geometry

M aterials

Acknowledgement The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the project partners (Siebenwurst Modell- und Form-bau GmbH & Co. KG, DST Draexilmaier Systemtechnik GmbH, Neue Materialien F端rth GmbH) and the companies (Bond-Laminates, Lanxess AG and Sabic Innovative Plastics) who provided the institute with the required raw materials for the related investigations.

In addition, the authors sincerely appreciate the financial support by the German Research Association (DFG) under the grant SFB-396 TP B3.

Ernst Schmachtenberg currently occupies the Chair of Polymer Technology (LKT), University of ErlangenNuremberg.

A uthor S

that is often required for complex loads applications. Furthermore, molding of the thermoplastic ribs over a thermoplastic fabric provides a very strong joint between the ribs and the insert sheet. It is an optimised technique that results in both processing feasibility and improved mechanical performance of the parts.

Ines K端hnert is Head of Thermoplastics Processing division at the Chair of Polymer Technology (LKT), University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Ahmad Al-Sheyyab is Scientific Assistant in the field of light weight structures in the thermoplastics processing division at the Chair of Polymer Technology (LKT), University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Thomas M端ller is Scientific Assistant in the field of light weight structures in the thermoplastics processing division at the Chair of Polymer Technology (LKT), University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

51

M aterials

Customer Obsession Approach For high quality interiors

In recent years, automotive interiors have become very important due to the increasing customer expectations.

Customers are increasingly looking for more aesthetic and comfortable interiors and are considering them as one of the important features of a vehicle.

I

veco considers customer as the “key point” to build up the innovation process that is based on the “Customer Obsession”—the customer is placed at the centre of the whole innovation process, and he / she is the main criterion to develop differentiating features for a vehicle.

“Customer care” has changed to “Customer obsession”, which has become the new mission for Iveco—developing a general approach in designing and measuring perceived quality as a way for tailoring vehicle as per customer’s demands and needs. To succeed in its new mission, it becomes essential for it to understand customer’s needs and design their vehicles as per customers’ expectations.

Rundschau”, “Tuttotrasporti”), customer interviews, forum and blog, product benchmarking and clinic test.

In addition to that CRF, in cooperation with Iveco, has developed a methodology, shared at FIAT Group level, to provide operative instruments to assess and predict the quality perception of plastics in vehicles, especially for exter-

Federica Fino Specialist on innovative materials “Product Quality” Group, Interiors & HMI Department Diego Marzorati Project Manager, Vehicle Architectures Department Centro Ricerche FIAT Biagio Nicosia In charge, “Innovation and Alternative Tractions” Department IVECO FIAT Group

nal and internal cabin application. The price plays a key role when it is difficult to demonstrate the technical performances quantitatively. This new approach allows to evaluate the ratio “perceived quality / price” to support the selection of new solution of materials and / or technologies that could have a direct impact on the different customer “value” perceptions.

User-centred design ERGONOMY

Comfort and well being

Instruments for perceived quality evaluation

Several conventional instruments that exist are used to understand the customer expectations and judgment. Public information is available on specialised press (e.g. “Les Routiers”, “Verkehrs

52

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

ENGINEERING

Technical functions

STYLE

Pleasantness Figure 1

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

53

M aterials

Human sensorial aspects

Colour Comfort

Acoustic Head

Thermal Manikin

Tactile Evalution

CaseStudy

Benchmark of HCV Perceived Quality viewpoint Subjective evaluation

Several market studies were performed in order to obtain indication related to the customers’ judgement.

A first study, performed with professional truck drivers, was focussed on defining the following: • The areas of the Truck Interiors that influence more in terms of Perceived Quality (QP) • The principal qualitative macro-dimensions (components in the selected area) setting up the idea of perceived quality for Heavy on-road Cab, from professional driver point of view.

The results obtained from this study were deeply investigated in order to define a ranking of the micro-dimensions (aspects of the components mentioned above). Several and different instruments were used to obtain this information:

54

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Focus group, semi-structured questionnaire analysis of the “free comments”.

Considering the importance of the customers’ viewpoint to the study, the major part of the jury was formed with customers. Apart from them, the jury consisted of professional truck drivers, not only of Iveco trucks but also of its competitors. The two major markets— Italy and Germany—were compared.

Objective evaluation

At the same time, all the trucks investigated in the benchmark have been evaluated from an objective point of view, using all the available instruments.

Then, the different solutions in terms of materials adopted in truck cabs have been evaluated and measured using traditional instruments. When it was not possible to use the conventional

Electronic Nose

Figure 2

instruments in order to characterise the solutions—due to their unavailability or inability to describe customers’ real feeling, the cabin solutions were evaluated using the procedure of multi-sensorial analysis. This procedure allows to evaluate interior plastic materials (cockpit, door panel, handles etc.) and to qualify in a repeatable way subjective quantities that correlate with physical measurements. The approach is based on sensorial analysis where the measurement “instruments” are a panel of trained people able to evaluate the interiors materials. Following a specific procedure that establishes gestures and movements, when someone sees a cockpit he can evaluate and describe it in one way, like tasting a glass of wine, where the descriptors are associated to physical quantities (grains, gloss, thickness, roughness etc.).

The methodology, developed and assessed by CRF, has been defined as follows: Definition of the dictionary: a group of typical users defined a huge amount of adjectives that describe perceived quality

M aterials

Multi-sensorial approach and quality indexes

In the past, customers looked mainly at performance, reliability and safety; nowadays people take it for granted and customer’s attention is addressed to a sensorial experience, pleasure and emotional feeling. Before purchasing, customer wants to experience the vehicle from a multi-sensorial point of view. The first impression is visual: customers look at exterior and interior design. Then, they touch, “feel” the vehicle, by handling the interior components (steering wheel, controls, seats and dashboard) and by using the sense of smell. Finally, there is an acoustic appreciation: customer listens to the engine noise, opening doors, windows and boxes. The materials used to enhance the comfort of the interiors could also play a key role in winning over the customer.

of a product (truck, interiors etc.); experts contributed to choose a smaller subsystem of these adjectives that univocally describe a component or a product. Each product / solution can be described by a diagram that contains these descriptors.

Definition of six different descriptors (adjective and its semantic opposite) related to tactile, visual and acoustical perception and definition of the protocol of evaluation (set of gesture, movement to do in order to test the part).

Each descriptor has a physical sample (reference) that describes it; this sample has been used to train, test and update the panel of experts.

Each physical sample has been measured with instruments and the evaluation scale (reference) adopted shows: • Same distance between steps • Values in the gap of automotive field.

Experts evaluated the Cab Interiors using these scales, the “Taster Suitcase”, as indicated in the Figure 3.

For these reasons, we are, nowadays, showing an increasing interest in the evaluation of perceived quality and comfort.

The criteria applied by consumers have changed on account of generally heightened expectations, resulting in a growing demand for enhanced ride comfort.

Perception, multi-sensorial coherence and interaction “between the man and his vehicle” are the new driver elements for a “user-centred design.” Again, the customer is placed in the centre of the main design process (Figure 1).

Perception, sensorial coherence and human interaction with the system are the new elements that lead the design and technical choices. Project requirements start from cancellation of disturbances on each sensorial channel: reduce noise, eliminate bad odour, increase tactile comfort, create thermal comfort and colour matching (Figure 2).

Quality index creation process Subjective Data Measured Quantities

Mathematical Correlation

TARGET setting deployment achieving

QUALITY INDEXES Ingress-Egress Seat Posture Seat Vibration Seat Hygrothermal Cabin Hygrothermal Cabin Acoustics Tactile and Visual Perceived Quality

tion of customers’ judgement and the rate as technical requirement for design specification.

Finally, all the information collected was examined in order to understand customer needs and feeling. This information was used in the following phase of proposal of an innovative solution to be able to improve the Perceived Quality, in terms of materials, storage, Human Machine Interface.

Subjective-objective correlation

The final aim was to collect the objective measurements and judgements and correlate with subjective evaluation.This link between objective and subjective evaluations is the first step for the definition of an Index for the Perceived Quality of Interior materials, the mathematical correlation allowing the translation of customer indication in technical language and the interpreta-

Multisensorial analysis: The methodology -3

Evaluation scale

-2

-1

+1

+2

+3

Correspondence between each value and each standard sample

Standard samples

Taster Suitcase

Figure 3

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

55

M aterials

The integration of all these aspects should allow understanding of multisensorial coherence for designing harmonious sensations.

The human sensorial aspects are investigated and explained by ergonomics by means of sensorial analysis.

The emerging subjective data are compared with the objective engineering parameters given by technical measurement on the vehicle.

This way it is possible to develop the “Quality Indexes,” correlation between subjective and objective data, strongly supported by a statistical approach (Figure 2). The Quality Index is then implemented in the process development of the material design specification.

The Iveco mid-term strategy provides a platform and business unit multi-scale solutions to obtain competitive advantage for its products. of material / technologies, Iveco has launched several themes of innovation, at near, mid and long-term.

The Iveco mid-term strategy aims at providing a platform and business unit multi-scale solutions in order to obtain a competitive advantage for its worldwide product range.

In particular, the mid-term strategy will be focussed on exploring and evaluating the following families: • Multifunctional materials • High performances materials • Hybrids and multi-materials.

The scouting and evaluation of these innovative materials will be performed in Iveco innovation activities, in different clustered projects, as listed below:

Evolution of materials road map

Iveco innovation clusters

Starting from customer needs and expectations, and from the emerging trends

56

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Conclusion

The market demands products with improved performance in terms of weight and cost reduction, perceived quality improvement, and new functionalities. The vehicle’s performance has to translate in the form of technical developments, which could possibly also be achieved with the use of plastic material. The performances have to be translated in technical functions that could be fulfilled also by the use of plastic material.

The solution lies in companies working hard to understand customer expectation in the best way and asking suppliers the right question thus helping them become even more competitive and take a technical / technological lead ahead of competitors.

A uthors

Federica FINO is a Specialist on innovative materials for cabin interiors & Perceived Quality Evaluation in “Product Quality” Group, Interiors & HMI Department at CRF. She holds a University degree in Materials Engineering and joined Centro Ricerche FIAT in 2001.

Since then she has been involved in material science and engineering related topics, focusing her activities on innovative materials for interiors, development of innovative interiors and methodologies for the evaluation of Perceived Quality.

A uthor

Customer needs and expectations have been defined on the basis of multi-sensorial approach. Starting from the sensorial analysis, a deep research of new solutions of materials and technologies for the improvement of the Perceived Quality has been carried out. A wide technology scouting has been carried out in cooperation with a lot of material producers, transformers and Tier 1 suppliers.

The main result of this process is the development of materials road maps that have been collected in clusters referring to the human perception: • Visual perception evolution • Appearance • Colours • Tactile perception evolution • Haptic & texture • Softness • Thermal • Olfactory perception evolution • Odours & emissions • Acoustical perception evolution • Sound – squeak and rattle • Value preservation evolution • Ecology evolution.

1. High-quality surface plastic materials 2. Structural composite materials 3. Reinforced plastic materials 4. High perceived quality materials for interiors 5. High-impact resistance materials 6. Multimaterials applications

Diego Marzorati is the Project Manager in Vehicle Architectures Dept. at Centro Ricerche FIAT. He joined Centro Ricerche FIAT in 1997. In 2002, he became Head of “Vehicle Interiors and Environment” Group, where he has been involved in material science and engineering related topics, focusing his activities in innovative materials for interiors and systems enabling an improvement of comfort and well-being in car-cabin. At the moment he is in charge of the internal project Interiors Concept devoted to the development of innovative solution for high perceived quality of vehicle interiors.

Biagio Nicosia is in charge of “Innovation and Alternative Tractions” Dept. at Iveco Spa. He is responsible for the Advanced Plastics Applications projects Torino/Italy. After graduation he has been employed as a Quality Manger in an automotive plastic moulding company. Then he moved to IVECO FIAT Group as specialist in plastic materials for the Central Testing department.

M aterials

Lightweight Metal Matrix Composites For automotive applications Lightweight engineering by optimised materials and component design is a central challenge in advanced mechanical engineering for automotive applications.

L

ightweight engineering by optimised materials and component design is a central challenge in advanced mechanical engineering for automotive applications. The increasing utilisation of light components and new concepts based on light metal alloys is focussed on the reduction of fuel consumption and pollutant emissions, efficiency improvement as well as cost reduction. New Light Metal Matrix Composites (LMMC) can be used in high performance parts in the power train and wheel suspensions, where improved stiffness as well as thermal and fatigue stability have to be achieved. Furthermore, they are also promising materials for safety relevant lightweight components because of their high specific strength and strain to failure values.

The automotive industry requires technical performance and high economic competitiveness with tough cost targets.

The production of fibre reinforced metals with conventional manufacturing techniques like squeeze casting or diffusion bonding leads to restrictions in the componentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s geometry and results in elevated manufacturing costs. This is mainly caused by long cycle times and the need for special tools and additional fibre sizing. The potential of metal matrix composites can be increased by applying new, fast and cost-effective manufacturing technologies. With this aim,

Rainer Gadow Institut fĂźr Fertigungstechnologie keramischer Bauteile (IFKB) Germany

a new method for the manufacturing of metal matrix composites (MMC) by thixoforging was developed. The proposed technique is based on the production of prepregs consisting of coated fibres and subsequent forming in a semisolid process.

For cost-effective coating, the industrially well-established arc wire technique is used. Thixoforging combines the features of casting, i.e. near-net-shape production and low wall thicknesses, with the

advantages of forging like high strength, high elongation as well as fine-grained microstructures.

The orientation of fibres has a significant influence on the final mechanical properties of the composite. Most applications require a well-defined orientation of the reinforcement in one spatial direction. However, if there are mechanical strains in different directions, the fibreorientation should be customised to 2D

Process chain for the manufacturing of fibre reinfored MMC components by thermal spraying and thixoforging UD/Fabric

Tailored

Winding

Simultaneous Winding and Coating

Coating

Trimming

Heating

Heating

Laminating

Thixoforging Figure 1

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

57

M aterials

or even complex 3D multi-directional continuous reinforcements. The introduced technology for MMC manufacturing allows the flexible processing of tailored fibre structures. In this article, the process technologies for continuous unidirectional (UD) fibre reinforcements, fibre reinforcements with 2D woven fabric structure and tailored local fibre reinforcement by simultaneous winding and coating are studied and the results in term of microstructure, densification and mechanical properties are presented, respectively.

LMMC production: Using thermal spraying and thixoforging

For continuous deposition with appropriate tension, the fibres are wound and stretched by using automated devices.

The next working step consists of coating the fibres with the matrix material by thermal spraying. The arc wire spraying technique allows the application of a broad variety of aluminium alloys with reduced thermal load on the sensitive fibre substrate. The geometry of the prepregs has to be adapted to the design of the final component. Then, prepregs are trimmed and laminated prior to rapid heating by infrared or inductive devices. The prepregs are finally processed to the MMC component by thixoforging (Figure 1).

In the following paragraphs, fundamentals of the arc wire spraying, heating and thixoforging processes are described.

Fibre coating by arc wire spraying

In this study, the industrially wellestablished arc wire spraying process is applied. With its high deposition rate and low heat transfer to the substrate, this technique is particularly suitable for the deposition of matrix material on reinforcement fibres to produce prepregs which are processed by thixoforging. A constant electric arc is generated between two continuously fed wires consisting of the coating material. The melt, which has temperatures of up to 2000-3000° C, is atomised and sprayed towards the

58

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Voltage

Principle of wire arc spraying process

Compressed air

Coating

Wire feeding

Electrical contact

Substrate Figure 2

Microsturcture of Al Si6 MMC with woven carbon fibre reinforcements

20 µm

Homogeneous and complete infiltration without fiber damage 200 µm Figure 3

substrate by compressed air (Figure 2).

The deposited material is quenched and solidified on the substrate surface within 0.1-10 µs. The continuous character of the thermal spray process and the small droplet size, in combination with optimised speed profiles for handling devices and advanced cooling systems, lead to low thermal load of the sensitive fibre substrate. Therefore, the substrate material is not damaged even for high melting point spray materials.

The arc wire spraying technique enables the production of fibre and fabric reinforced composites with different matrix / fibre volume ratio by varying the coating thickness. However, this is only possible within a certain range, because residual stresses increase with coating thickness, resulting in crack formation

and coating delamination. Moreover, residual stresses can lead to deformation of coated prepregs. For optimised trimming and lamination, coating thickness and residual stress distribution have to be well balanced so that flat fibre prepregs are obtained after coating.

Heating and thixoforging

For thixoforging, the prepregs are heated up to semi-solid state of the matrix material. In this work, the light metal alloy AlSi6 was applied. The optimised temperature range for thixoforging processing of this aluminium alloy varies between 850K and 900K. The required temperature level in case of laminated fibre prepregs can be reached by infrared radiator. Massive bolts as semi-finished material are heated up by an inductive heating device. In the

M aterials

mentioned temperature range, the AlSi6 alloy shows a liquid fraction of 20-60 per cent. A hydraulic high-speed 5,000 kN press with adaptive punch speed of 800 mm/s under a defined force-path behaviour is used for densification. The high punch speed guarantees appropriate thixotropic behaviour of the matrix material, which rapidly cools during transfer from the IR heating device to the press, but also in the die as a result of heat transfer from the prepregs to the punch and the die. However, due to short cycle times and near-net-shape forming ability, the method for MMC production in the semi-solid state leads to cost and time reduction in comparison to conventional MMC production technologies like squeeze casting or gas pressure infiltration.

Figure 3 shows the microstructure of a composite consisting of 18 layers of carbon fibres coated with about 125 Âľm AlSi6 on both sides by arc wire spraying.

The fibres are oriented bi-directional in 0/90° direction and perpendicular to the applied force during the forging process.

The good wetting and complete infiltration of the metal matrix material into the fibres was experimentally determined. The single fibres show no deformation or other mechanical damage. Experimental evaluation also showed only minor chemical reaction (and thus damage) at the fibre / matrix interface.

manufacturing (Figure 4). A stable aluminum frame provides the structural basis for different components. By means of an adapter, different commercial fibre coils can be mounted. A friction brake unit at the rotational coil axis keeps the fibre under defined tension during the winding process. The fibre tension can be adapted continuously. The fibre guide unit can be also continuously varied in speed and horizontal range of the winding width. It consists of several rolls for fibre strand control, fibre spreading, fibre deposition on the winding unit at a constant angle and for prevention of fibre strand drilling. The electric drive system for the fibre guide defines the fibre strand position on the cylinder in horizontal direction.

For deposition and winding, cylinders of different size can be used. By Robot guided arc wire torch and winding unit

adaptation of the cylinder diameter to the coating thickness, it is possible to produce flat fibre prepregs. After removing the coated prepregs from the substrate cylinder and cutting them to the desired fibre length, the primary cylindrical shape deforms towards a flat geometry due to the residual stresses which arise during coating deposition. A flat fibre prepreg structure reduces the handling effort in the subsequent processing steps.

During the winding process, the cylinderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rotational speed has to be aligned with the speed of the fibre guide unit. The speed ratio is responsible for the overlapping, which is important to obtain a homogeneous fibre layer thickness and sufficient prepreg stability. The relative speed between wound fibres and particle jet during the coating process also depends on the rotational speed of the

Drive system

Splash guard

Fiber coil

Arc wire torch

Robot

Process optimisation and equipment Production of unidirectional fibre reinforced composites

For manufacturing unidirectional fibre reinforced light metals, winding of the continuous fibres to fibre bundles is required. The bundles are coated with light metal material by means of the arc-wire technique and trimmed before laminating. Finally, the laminated prepregs are heated up and densified by thixoforging.

Regarding technical equipment, a new winding unit was developed with the focus on short cycle times during prepreg

Figure 4

Arc wire coating process and winding equipment Deflection rollers Frame Torch Robot Coating area Fibre fabric Electric drive Aspiration vents Figure 5

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

59

M aterials

Simultaneous winding and coating (left), fibre reinforced rim manufactured by thixoforging (right) Arc wire torch

Fibre strand fibre reinforcement

Rotating aluminium alloy bolt

Fibre reinforcement

Bolt for thixoforging main body A356 (AI Si7Mg); simultaneous winding and coating of the fibre by arc wire spraying(AI Si6)

Aluminium alloy bolt

Figure 6

cylinder. Thus, the axial feeding rate of the spray torch has to be adapted to the cylinderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rotational speed. In order to keep the thermal and kinetic load on the fibres as low as possible and to minimise cycle times, the relative speed has to be optimised.

An efficient cooling system is required to reduce the thermal load on the fibres and on the thermally sprayed coating.

In this way, four compressed air cooling nozzles are applied. Two of them are attached on both sides of the spraying torch. The two additional nozzles are stationary fixed to the frame of the winding unit.

Production of 2D textile fibre reinforced composites

Two-dimensional fibre structures are required for components subjected to complex mechanical load in large area applications. In this case, textile woven fabrics are used as basic material for coated prepregs. Special winding equipment is needed to fix and stretch the fabric in a way that enables continuously coating of wound coil from â&#x20AC;&#x153;coil to coilâ&#x20AC;?.

Load cells inside the drive rolls of the winding equipment control the tension of the stretched fabric. If elongation or contraction of the fabric due to thermal expansion occurs, electric drives will compensate the change of tension within

60

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

a control loop. With this equipment fabric rolls up to a web width of 1,500 mm can be coated with a predefined pre-stress in one single procedure. The coating can be deposited continuously or in cycles. The meandering movement and kinematics of the arc wire torch is performed by a 6-axis robot system. Figure 5 illustrates the winding equipment and the robot guided torch. The coated prepregs can be trimmed in a subsequent step by material NC-cutting control sytems providing reduced material wastage.

Production of tailored, local reinforced composites

For local improvement of the component mechanical properties, a production process based on simultaneous winding and coating was developed. As a case study, the manufacturing of a wheel rim with local reinforcement in the central area is presented.

The fibre reinforcement is applied and coated while winding a fibre strand on a cylinder (Figure 6). The cylinder provides the basis for the light metal material of the later composite and consists of casting aluminium alloy A356. After attaching the coated fibre strand on the top of cylinder, the cylinder is heated up by an inductive heating device and finally thixoforged to the near net shape component (Figure 6).

Figure 6 shows the well embedded fibre reinforcement in the centre of the wheel rim.

Summary

Lightweight engineering is a crucial field of research in advanced design and engineering of components and systems for high performance automobile technology.

Although LMMC can fulfil most of the requirements in system development, new production processes have to be developed to ensure cost-effective manufacturing as well as optimised mechanical properties.

By means of thermal spraying and thixoforging technologies, LMMC with UD fibre reinforcement, 2D fibre structures and tailored local reinforcements can be efficiently manufactured. The arc wire spraying technique allows the deposition of a variety of casting aluminium alloys on reinforcement fibres with reduced thermal load and high deposition rates. The laminated coated prepregs are processed by thixoforging to near net shape components. With the focus on the critical process parameters (flexible production, fibre cooling and tension during coating), advanced manufacturing systems for each reinforcement strategy were developed. Thus, composite materials which fulfill the requirements of high performance applications can be made available.

engine and chassis

Chassis Control Systems Impact on CO2

In view of the growing importance of reducing CO2 emissions, the chassis systems can play an important role in meeting the emission targets.

M

any countries have set aggressive targets for the reduction of �� CO2 emissions (including European nations, Japan and Korea) that range from a fleet average of 140 to 120 gm/km (and steadily reducing in the future). �� CO2 ����������������������� is directly caused by burning fuel (a gasoline engine produces around 2.3kg of CO ��2 ����������������������� per litre, of petrol; 130g/km of �� CO2 ���������������������� is equivalent to 4.5 litres per 100 km (52 mpg US, 63 MPG imperial) for a diesel-fuelled car, and 5.0 litres per 100 km (47 mpg US, 56 MPG imperial) for a gasoline (petrol)fuelled car). Added to this, the growing customer pressure due to the steadily rising cost of fuel (a 10 per cent reduction in vehicle CO ��2 �������������������� is equivalent to a

10 per cent reduction in fuel consumption) and the impact of the �� CO2 �������� related car taxes (yearly and congestion based) is forcing car makers to reduce �� CO2 emissions in their vehicles.

Against these pressures, the averages achieved by the 10 best selling car makers in Europe in 2007 range from 137.3 gm/ km to 188.4 gm/km with only one being below 140 gm/km. There are a number of “standard” ways to reduce a vehicle’s CO ��2 emissions—using diesel engines against gasoline, and using a hybrid powertrain, but they only add to the vehicle’s cost.

In Europe, diesel engine vehicles are so extensively used that in many countries the cost of diesel is rising faster than gasoline because refineries can only produce

Peter Miller Director, Electrical/Electronics Engineering Ricardo Ltd., UK

a certain amount of diesel (and gasoline) from a given quantity of crude oil. The most basic and cheapest hybrid system that just stops the engine when the vehicle is stationary can reduce �� CO2 ���������� emissions only by 5 per cent, which by itself is not enough to reach the targets. Simple measures for reducing vehicle CO ��2 include �������� reducing vehicle weight (around 6 per cent per 100 kg) and reducing electrical load (~0.6 litre gasoline is used for every 1kWhr of electrical energy consumed).

From a global warming viewpoint, it is also important that a wider view of �� CO2 � emissions is taken than a narrow view that considers only direct emissions from the vehicle during its use. This means that the CO2 emitted ������������������������������������ during material extraction, component manufacture and shipping, and while recycling at its end-of-life must also be considered. For example, if we consider the aluminium in a mid-sized gasoline engined car, the �� CO2 ���������� emissions during the car’s use constitute only 53 per cent of its total CO ��2 emissions �������������� and even this comes down as vehicle efficiency improves (and is already below 50 per cent for a similar diesel engine vehicle).

Existing chassis systems

Historically chassis systems have not been considered as a source of �� CO2 savings, ������������� but given the aggressive targets for emission reductions they are now being looked at for ways to achieve savings. The obvious ways to achieve this are to select materials with a low CO ��2 footprint, ����������������������� low density

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

61

engine and chassis

Engine load during MVEG cycle

Energy gained during deceleration Energy gained during a deceleration event from 112kph initial velocity

Engine off 70% of cycle

60% 50% 40%

6 Conventional Hybrid

And never runs at low load

30%

5.5 %SOC rise

Proportion of Time in Load Increment(%)

70%

20% 10%

Hybrid vehicles

It’s likely that more hybrid vehicles will be used to reduce �� CO2. In a hybrid vehicle, the traction is supplied by a combination of electrical energy and a conventional (normally gasoline) engine.

This combination may be done in various ways. For example, Toyota uses two electric machines to create what is effectively an electric CVT, while Honda uses a simpler system where the electric machine is directly on the crankshaft.

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

140 - 160 Nm

120 - 140 Nm

100 - 120 Nm

80 - 100 Nm

60 - 80 Nm

40 - 60 Nm

20 - 40 Nm

O Nm (Engine off)

0 - 20 Nm (includes idle)

Engine Load Increment

(as reducing vehicle weight also reduces CO2) and use the minimum amount of this material, and this is true for any component in the vehicle. An example of �� CO2 ��������������������������������� savings from a chassis system is tyre pressure warning systems (normally fitted for safety reasons) as under-inflated tyres increase fuel consumption by 3-4 per cent.

Power steering systems require a significant amount of energy, a beltdriven power steering system averages around 400 W, which can be reduced by using “on-demand systems” like electro-hydraulic or even better pure electric power steering systems. An electric power steering system may need a high electrical power of over 1 kW, but the average load is significantly reduced and so the average �� CO2 emitted ������������������������������ is also significantly reduced).

62

4.5 4 3.5

<0 Nm (Engine Braking)

0%

5

Figure 2

But in general, the aim is to either run the combustion engine as efficiently as possible or stop it completely.

This is illustrated in Figure 1 (from the Ricardo Efficient-C vehicle which is a full hybrid demonstrator emitting <100 g/km CO ��2) where it can be seen the combustion engine is never used at low loads but it is used a little more at higher loads (where its efficiency is high - Figure 2).

Hybrid vehicles: Impact on chassis systems

In a hybrid vehicle the combustion engine is stopped whenever the vehicle is stationary. The engine may also be stopped when the vehicle is moving (Efficient-C’s engine is stopped 70 per cent of the time during the MVEG test cycle, Figure 2). This means that chassis systems cannot get their power from the FEAD (Front End Accessory Drive) if they always need power e.g. brake assistance, power steering, air-conditioning etc., which causes significant impact to these systems. The good news is that a high voltage and high power electrical supply is available, which with careful design can be used for these loads (driving the loads via electric motors rather than directly from the FEAD). This also allows more packaging flexibility as the loads do not have to be fitted where they can

3 2.5 2

0

5

10 15 20 Decel.rate(kph/s)

25

30

Figure 3

simply be coupled to the FEAD (normally a belt). Electrical control of actuators also allows novel additional functionality to be added. In Toyota Prius, the “self parking” option uses the vehicle’s electric power steering to allow the vehicle to steer itself into a parking space that user selects on a screen mounted on the dashboard.

The vehicle’s braking system also becomes significantly more complex as a hybrid vehicle attempts to capture as much energy as it can into its battery when the vehicle is slowing down (called regenerative braking) rather than using the conventional friction brakes (which convert the vehicle’s kinetic energy to heat, so wasting it). This is illustrated in Figure 3, which shows the electrical (reusable) energy gained when braking a hybrid vehicle at a defined rate. At high braking rates, the friction brakes have to be heavily used so little electrical energy can be captured, while at slow deceleration rates (close to the natural deceleration of the vehicle due to friction, wind resistance etc.) again little electrical energy can be captured. This process is made more complex by the fact that only a limited amount of energy can be stored in the vehicle’s battery. If the battery is already full and the driver applies the brake then all the deceleration must be done by the friction brakes.

engine and chassis

The future

Torque vectoring system

Braking torque

Braking force

Drive torque

Tractive force

With Drive Torque

Without Drive Torque Figure 4

The torque vectoring systems impact on under/oversteer Path without correction

Path without correction Path with correction

Path with correction Ftire

Ftire Ay

Ftire

Ftire

Ftire

Ftire

lite.net), which is creating a revolutionary driver information system that aims to teach drivers how to safely minimise CO2 .� A more forward looking example is the Sentience vehicle (www.sentience. info) jointly developed by Ricardo, Jaguar / Land Rover with support from Ford North America, Orange, Ordnance

Ftire Ay

Induced yaw moment

Understeer moment

A uthor

Vehicles systems are already starting to become more interconnected as they also connect to data sources outside the vehicle. The capabilities of this more intelligent vehicle can be used to reduce �� CO2 ����������������������������� emissions as well as improve safety. The AUTOSAR consortium members (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) who include automobile manufacturers, suppliers and tool developers are defining an open and standardised automotive software architecture that can be used to reduce the number of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) in a vehicle while improving the communication between them. From a �� CO2 ����� viewpoint this should reduce the total weight of ECUs and wiring in the vehicle—a car contains about 100 kg of electronics and 2 km of wiring.

In the future, vehicle control will be done at a high level rather than directly by sub-systems. An example of this is Ricardo’s Drivewise vehicle which has both a steer-by-wire system and a Torque Vectoring system. The Torque Vectoring systems (Figures 4,5) provide another source of yaw (“steering”) control.

Through this system, it is possible to take the driver’s “commands” from the steering wheel and “execute” them using a combination of the steer-by-wire, Torque Vectoring and brakes. This control system’s key target is obviously to direct the vehicle in the requested direction, but clearly the control system can (should) select the combination of actuators that minimise the vehicle’s �� CO2 emissions ���������� while safely meeting the drivers demands.

Development of such systems requires whole vehicle simulation capabilities.

Ricardo’s V-SIM was used to simulate the Drivewise vehicle allowing control system development and safety assessments before the vehicle was built.

The limitation of this approach as a method to reduce �� CO2 ������������������ is its dependence on the drivers inputs, the smoother the driver steers the lower will be the vehicle’s CO ��2 ����������������������������� emissions. The UK government funded Foot-LITE program (www.foot-

Induced yaw moment Ftire

Oversteer moment

Figure 5

Survey, TRL and InnovITS which uses knowledge of the road ahead (both fixed data like road topology and variable data like traffic conditions, weather etc.) to optimise the vehicle’s overall CO ��2 emis����� sions. The vehicle systems used include the brakes, engine air conditioning etc.

These systems reduce the consumption of fuel by 10 per cent.

Peter Miller is Director, Electrical / Electronics Engineering at Ricardo UK Ltd. He holds PhD in Electronic engineering from Hull University, England. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and a member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and of the Association for Computing Machinery. He has authored over 50 papers and has a large number of patents.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

63

engine and chassis

Global Light Vehicle Market Drivers and technology trends In view of its ongoing work in the light vehicle powertrain segment, KGP has undertaken a joint research project with J.D. Power Automotive Forecasting to study the technology and production trends in global markets. The article provides the most recent findings of the project.

L

ooking at the overall picture, it is estimated that global auto production will rise from 66 million in 2006 to 88 million in 2014. This is the most optimistic scenario. The credit crunch, recession and rising fuel prices may, however, have a downward impact on this assessment. Growth in this period is expected to be mostly in Asian markets (13mn) and Eastern Europe (4mn), with North America, Western Europe and South American only rising by 1mn units each.

and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) on larger vehicles. The irony of emissions controls is that it drives up fuel consumption and cost, as performance is lost due to the inclusion of emissions equipment.

Compliance varies

Emissions compliance varies from region to region. Broadly, for gasoline engines complying with Euro 3, it will cost US$ 150 more to comply with Euro 4 and incrementally US$ 100 more to comply

The irony of emissions controls is that it drives up fuel consumption and cost, as performance is lost due to the inclusion of emissions equipment.

Emission standards â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The key driver

The global concerns regarding emissions have been the main driver in the growth of automotive market for the last 10 years. Emission standards are focussed on US, European and Japanese levels. The US is the strictest with Japan and Europe catching up. The standards apply differently to gasoline and diesel engines. Most gasoline engines are expected to continue with Three Way Catalysts (TWC) and diesels would likely have a mix of DeNOx catalyst, Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF)

64

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

with Euro 5. For diesel engines complying with Euro 3, it will cost US$ 250 more to comply with Euro 4 and US$ 250 more to comply with Euro 5. Compliance with diesel Euro 5 costs US$ 750 more than gasoline Euro 5. Such high costs explain why Latin America likes to meet Euro 4 standards only by 2009 and Asia by 2010. Globally by 2015, vehicles compliant with Euro 4, 5 and 6 are expected to dominate the markets.

Improved fuel economy

Most regulated markets have set fuel

Alex Woodrow Director and Head of Research Knibb, Gormezano & Partners UK

economy standards and have accepted the need to regulate CO2 emissions.

Europe and Japan (the latterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regulations being 160g/km in 2002 to 125g/km by 2015) have the most ambitious targets, followed by China and Australia, Canada and South Korea. In proposed standards, the US lags behind other economies (260g/km in 2002 to 235g/km by 2011). Comparing a pragmatic formula (CO2 emissions x sales x distance travelled) across the regions, the US has the highest levels from new car salesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;91bn g/km, followed by China 16bn g, Japan 10bn g, Canada 9bn g and Germany 8bn g. By 2015, the US will have 86bn g whilst China will rise to 35bn g reflecting its rapidly growing new car sales. So even as there are improvements in specific parameters, the overall impact on the environment still continues to be of concern.

Priorities vary by market

The ranking of priorities seems to vary between developed and developing markets: Developed markets place the highest priority on comfort, followed by purchase price, features, reliability, fuel economy, image and service costs, in that order. Developing markets place higher priority on purchase price, followed by fuel economy, ease of maintenance, drivability, reliability, features, performance and comfort, in that order.

engine and chassis

Key market characteristics for the main global markets North America

Western Europe

Japan

Brazil

Russia

India

China

Average Displacement (CC)

3600

1865

1944

1410

1780

1450

1875

Average Power (DIN PS)

240

128

136

90

94

66

106

Diesel production share 2007

5.5

51.0

7.0

3.7

9.5

9.5

9.5

Automatics share 2007

90.0

20.0

75.0

2.0

5.0

10.0

30.0

Fuel economy standard

CAFE 25mpg by 2020

130g/km CO2 by 2012

Weight based target by 2015

None

None

None

Weight based standard

Key Technologies

DISI TC, DCT, stop-start, 6AT

DISI TC, DCT, stop-start

DISI, stop- start

Multi fuel FIE

SMPI, TWC, CR DI

SMPI, TWC, CR DI

SMPI, TWC, CRDI, DCT, 6AT

Euro 2 & 3

Euro 3 & 4

Emissions Standards

Tier 2

Euro 4

Japanese standard

Euro 3

Euro 3

Source: Knibb Gormezano Partners; J.D. Power Automotive Forecasting Key: DISI – Direct Injection Spark Ignition, TC – Turbocharger, DCT – Dual Clutch Transmission, AT - Automotive Transmission, FIE – Fuel Injection Equipment, SMPI – Sequential Multiport Injection, TWC – Three Way Catalyst

Diesel continues to grow

A forecast of the present trend shows that global share of diesel in light vehicle sales will rise from 24.1 per cent in 2008 to 30.4 per cent in 2015. This trend masks varied regional performance—In Western Europe the share will be steady (from 59.9 per cent in 2008 to 60.2 per cent by 2015), but in NAFTA it will rise from 3.4 per cent in 2008 to 11.4 per cent by 2015. This forecast is sensitive to regional differentials between the approach to gasoline and diesel usage and tax policies and fuel price trends. By way of comparison, hybrids only achieved 0.5 per cent globally and 2 per cent in the US in 2008.

Fuel price – Yet another key driver

Fuel prices vary from market to market.

Germany, China, France and Italy favour diesel, whilst in the UK and US, diesel costs more than gasoline. In May 2008, the gasoline price in UK was US$ 2.20 and diesel US$ 2.40 per litre, whilst in the US, it was US$ 0.96 and diesel US$ 1.12 per litre.

Alternative fuels are likely to become more economically feasible as fuel prices continue to rise. There is a need to move from food source biofuels (first generation) to prevent increased

food prices and shortages leading to malnutrition in developing countries. Brazil and USA are now major markets for alternative fuels, but there is uncertainty due to the EU biofuels mandate. The perceived opinion on biofuels is changing in Europe with a gradual realisation that it adds to pressures on the environment, instead of reducing it. CNG adoption is mixed— it seems particularly attractive in the Middle East and has been adopted widely in India.

economic crises (based on 1930s pioneering efforts), has now matured into legislation and regulations specifying design standards. As R&D focusses increasingly on parameters such as fuel economy and performance, legislation will catch up and be able to set more comparable standards across technologies and regions.

Conclusion

In spite of the “globalisation” trend and the strong position of global engine families of the major multina-

Technology roadmaps in developed markets show a general shift towards improvements in performance and efficiency of engines, ancillaries and fuels.

Innovative technologies

Technology roadmaps in developed markets show a general shift towards improvements in performance and efficiency of engines and ancillaries, fuels, and cooling systems as well as in electronics. To optimise performance and efficiency, improving fuel economy and reducing emissions have become important. Renewed considerable activity on aerodynamics in the 1980s forced by

tional car manufacturing groups, each region still retains diverse and unique characteristics, where “no single size fits all.” The future technology roadmap is quite complex for each market with differing priorities for developing and developed markets. One contributor to improved fuel economy—aerodynamics—is a pointer to trends. Aerodynamics matured in the early 1980s and the principles are

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

65

Regional Analysis

engine and chassis

Cleaning up the fuel

Emission reduction is also achieved by reducing the sulphur content of fuels. The lowest levels are in NAFTA, followed by Western Europe. Asian countries, India in particular, have made great strides to reduce sulphur, whilst Russia lags behind and will need to form a technology Joint Venture to achieve reduced emission levels.

Analysing the key market characteristics for each of the major regions, a diverse picture emerges:

North America

Fuel economy is currently a hot topic with consumers, as is a switch from trucks to cars. Car makers are responding with weight reduction programmes (thinner stronger steel bodies) and smaller engines. There has been considerable investment in diesels. Low sulphur diesel fuel has been introduced. Hybrids have grown rapidly.

The penetration of diesel and automatic vehicles is very low.

There is a large share of imports as domestic makers are slow to respond and need joint ventures to improve their position. There is a significant growth potential but further investment is needed in modern engines and transmissions.

There are no fuel economy standards.

Western Europe

India

The penetration of diesel vehicles is very high and has probably reached saturation point. The share of hybrids is growing but only slowly, with concerns over the weight penalty of the added drive. Car makers have been shifting production of vehicles, and increasingly engines, to Central Europe. Their focus is on downsizing, weight reduction and stop-start systems whilst retaining higher comfort levels which have weight penalties. The use of disincentives based on displacement and fuel type is now widespread and there is now uncertainty over the suitability of the biofuels directive. The legislative focus is on CO2 reduction.

The share of diesel vehicles has been increasing at a strong pace. The share of automatics is still low but increasing interest is evident. The domestic car manufacturers have a high share of production. There is a growing share for Joint Ventures. The market is a low cost one, which offers significant advantages to domestic manufacturers. Quality issues in the premium segment favour SUP imports at present but more local assembly by Western European luxury brands is on the cards. Emissions standards need to be improved and there are as yet no fuel economy standards.

Japan

The share of diesel vehicles is very low and hybrids appear too costly. There is a high penetration of automatics and a very high share for smaller cars, mainly encouraged by a general lack of space in urban environments. After tolerating years of high levels of pollution in cities, Japan now has the most stringent fuel economy target. There is a high export volume.

Brazil

adopted globally. There is now, a convergence in the need for lower cost, lower fuel consumption solutions, including lighter weight. Most efforts are now focussed on optimising engine performance and emissions, transmission and driveline solutions and this is where most innovations should take place.

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

A uthor

Multi-fuel vehicles have a high share. Diesel penetration is low.

Automatics have only a marginal role due to a macho culture.

Most production is for the domestic market. There are no domestic manufacturers. There are as yet, no fuel economy standards.

66

Russia

China

The share of diesel vehicles is low. The penetration of automatic vehicles has advanced rapidly to a level higher than that of Western Europe. Domestic and Joint Venture manufacturers have grown strongly and the overall production has increased rapidly to meet primarily a strong domestic demand. There is some need to develop new engine generations with the small car segment focussed on economy and the mid size premium comfort segment is smaller but very dynamic. Weightbased fuel economy standards have been introduced.

Emissions standards are already close to European levels, with China now recognising the need to improve on environmental issues.

Alex Woodrow has been a Director of KGP since 2000 and Head of Research since 1998. He joined KGP in 1994 after completing his first degree in Manufacturing Economics and Engineering at Birmingham University. He has recently completed MSc in Automotive Systems Engineering from Loughborough University. Since joining KGP, Alex has completed over 100 global projects for clients including vehicle manufacturers, component and materials suppliers as well as government and other organisations.

A large share of these projects was related to powertrain or materials.

engine and chassis

Advances in Engine Downsizing Technologies The article talks about the impact of rising oil prices on automotive offerings in the near future and focusses on the advancements in engine downsizing technologies.

B

lame it on the oil prices. They have steadfastly refused to succumb to gravity, marching on ever higher. Six months ago, US$100 a barrel was seen as a psychological barrier that may or may not be breached. Today, oil has not only broken that barrier, it has surged another 40 per cent over it. At US$140 a barrel, oil forces us to reconsider all our equationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;right from the growth of the economy to agricultural economics (fertilizers are made from natural gas).

Even more directly, it affects both the automobile manufacturer and the consumer. Higher oil prices invariably lead to changes in consumer preference, with the result that an unprepared manufacturer is normally stuck with vehicles consumers no longer care for. It could be a double blow if the manufacturer doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have vehicles in the pipeline where consumer preference is shifting. Sudden spike in oil prices, while rare, are not unheard of in the automobile industry. The 1973 OPEC oil crisis and subsequent ones have given manufacturers an idea of how to react.

Although todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rise in oil prices is unprecedented, the response is invariably the same. Manufacturers move toward smaller platforms to offer vehicles that are more fuel efficient.

In the near term, the technology will hence be geared toward fuel efficiency potentially at the cost of performance.

A number of technologies in development however promise to blend fuel

efficiency with performance; though, in vastly smaller engine sizes. This is because all other things being equal, smaller engines are more efficient than larger ones, especially in the mid-range where most of the driving occurs. This coincides with a global trend of decreasing engine sizes over the decades. As engines have improved with better electronic controls and manufacturing technology, smaller engines now perform as good as their big ancestors. While the average engine size in North America used to be around 5000cc, it is now around 3600cc, with Asia and Europe having average sizes of 1800cc to 1900cc.

Downsizing and approaches

Downsizing, as this trend is called, promises to reduce engine size at a relatively small performance loss. A number of technologies are available for manufacturers in the downsizing arena. Combustion engineering approaches such as homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) are being developed along with new approaches such as employing a hybrid drive train. Conventional alternates such as force induction are also available with the advantage of being production ready for mass market use. Exotic techniques such as water / methanol injection or nitrous oxide injection are employed in a number of aftermarket applications such as racing where engine size is regulated and are effective, though they are no prospects for usage in mass market.

Sivam Sabesan Industry Analyst, Technical Insights Automotive & Transportation, Frost & Sullivan India

The traditional technique used in downsizing is to move to a smaller engine. This has a number of cascading benefits. The smaller engine is normally more efficient in city traffic and the smaller size translates to a smaller mass, which makes it both cheaper to manufacture and easier to package. The lower weight will also improve handling.

The replacement engine, however, needs to have better performance than stock.

This is normally handled through vastly improved breathing. An engine is a lot like an air pump. Getting better performance involves pushing more air in (with the correct ratio of fuel injected) and out.

This led to the emergence of multivalve heads and turbocharging in the mass market applications in the late 1970s.

Forced induction, the art of pushing in more air than the engine is designed to accommodate, is still the easiest way to increase the performance of a small engine. In practice, this involves using either a supercharger or a turbocharger.

Both superchargers and turbochargers are compressors that force more air into the engine during the intake stroke.

The difference is in the way they are powered. Superchargers are normally run off the crankshaft while turbochargers use the thermal energy of the exhaust to compress the incoming air.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Turbochargers use energy that is otherwise wasted, so they are more efficient. But since they are exposed to

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

67

engine and chassis

68

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

it would prove invaluable in downsizing as it can provide both performance and fuel efficiency.

Hybrid electric drive trains are the other candidates for replacing bigger engines. Hybrids are slowly moving into the mass market, Toyota Prius being largely responsible for the shift.

While it was harder to justify the cost premium with low oil prices, hybrids today make both economic and environmental sense. The combination of an electric motor with an internal combustion engine provides good drivability in town without the range problem of a purely electric vehicle. Electric motors offer instant torque allowing hybrids to have good acceleration and regenerative power. Additionally, with the boost coming from the electric motor, the internal combustion engine can be sized for average load and not maximum load. Prius, for instance, uses only a 77 hp engine. While they are more expensive than conventional vehicles, they make a good stepping point in the progression toward extended range electric vehicles. They are also well-poised to grab technologies from both the internal combustion engine and the battery side, helping them become better than the competition.

Focusing only on technological advances, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the automotive industry is one of the most cost-conscious sectors in manufacturing. There are legendary stories of cost cutting. Back in the mid1990s, Ford stopped painting the inside of the ashtrays on its Explorer SUVs. Ford saved about 25 cents per vehicle, but since the company was rolling out

A uthor

the exhaust heat, they require thermal management and might be harder to package. Superchargers use crankshaft energy to compress the incoming air and hence, are less efficient. However, they are normally easier to package and tune.

They also offer better performance during idling (when properly sized) while turbochargers normally have a lag, coming on boost at around 2000 rpm.

Combustion engineering approaches such as HCCI aim to redesign the conventional combustion process with one that combines the best of both petrol and diesel engines. It aims to initiate combustion spontaneously at various points in the chamber without a spark igniting the mixture. With lower peak temperatures, the emissions have lower nitrous oxide, but also have higher carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons than conventional engines. Successful engines using this approach should achieve diesel efficiencies with petrol-like emissions in smaller engine sizes. In laboratory testing, the combustion timing seems to be the limiting factor. Petrol engine timing is controlled by the spark plug while diesel engine timing is controlled by fuel injection. HCCI timing on the other hand needs to be spontaneous in various points across the chamber.

Engines on the test bed also show limited power range. While a number of concept cars have been demonstrated to journalists, HCCI in its current form remains extremely hard to implement.

Although its characteristics match the requirement of a hybrid, in production form, the HCCI will probably be combined with conventional combustion outside a narrow power band. A number of other questions are also unanswered.

Would the extra efficiency achieved be negated by the heavier mass of the engine required to cope with the higher peak pressure? How foolproof would the knock control be? A HCCI engine with detonation would destroy itself in short order, but few viable forms of timing control exist. If the concept should, however, make it into the mass market,

400,000 Explorers a year, it came to a gross saving of a $100,000 a year. A decade on, cost is still the king. Auto manufacturers can be expected to offer the cheapest solution that will solve the problem.

When it comes to downsizing, the most viable mass market solutions will be the ones that can be manufactured with minimum reengineering and cost.

Retrofit devices on engines, for instance, will be more appealing than redesigning the engine itself. Engine advances will favour technologies that can be quickly and cheaply brought into production.

For manufacturers to choose a particular technology the payback has to be quick and the technology needs to be sufficiently mature. A number of such solutions are expected to be available in engines in the near future. They range from high compression, ethanol boosted, turbocharged engines from Ethanol Boosting Systems to Ford’s Ecoboost series of supercharged four cylinders.

Forced induction still appears to be a viable solution for mass market application with today’s superchargers and turbochargers being much more efficient than their predecessors.

Conclusion

With today’s oil prices, there will be continued focus on energy efficiency as well as alternate fuels. A number of startups have sprouted to capitalise on this market. Historically, most of the radical advances in any field have come from individuals and small companies. So it is also quite possible that some of the biggest advances in tomorrow’s engines are totally off the radar today.

Sivam Sabesan is an Industry Analyst with the Frost & Sullivan Technical Insights Team. He focusses on monitoring and analysing emerging trends, technologies and market behaviour in the automotive and transportation industry around the globe. Sivam holds a Master’s degree in Automotive Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences, Esslingen, Germany. He is the lead contributor to the Technical Insights’ monthly Automotive and Transportation Technology Alert and has written many articles.

engine and chassis

Advanced Diesel Engines Is gasoline the best fuel?

Conventional diesel fuels are prone to autoignition. A lot of the expensive technology in modern diesel engines is required to alleviate the effects of this low ignition delay of the fuel in order to promote pre-mixed combustion to reduce smoke and NOx. Gasoline-like fuels, with higher resistance to autoignition, are better suited for this type of combustion.

T

oday, the focus of development of internal combustion (IC) engines is on improving fuel efficiency while maintaining exhaust emissions and cost at acceptable levels. Currently, IC engines are either gasoline / spark ignition (SI) engines or diesel / compression ignition (CI) engines. In SI engines, fuel and air are pre-mixed and the chemical energy of the fuel is released by combustion in an advancing flame front initiated by a

be sustained in SI engines if the mixture strength is very lean and the engine will misfire. In general, running the engine lean improves efficiency.

The power output from SI engines has to be controlled by controlling the amount of air breathed by the engine through the use of a throttle, while this is achieved in diesel engines by controlling the fuelling rate without the use of a throttle. Moreover, the compression ratio

A Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine potentially offers the high efficiency of a diesel engine, but with very low levels of smoke and NOx. spark. In diesel engines, the fuel and air are not pre-mixed and the energy release occurs by autoignition, as this mixing proceeds. Modern SI engines have to use a catalyst to reduce oxides of nitrogen (NOx), hydrocarbons (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) in their exhaust. Hence, they have to run at stoichiometric mixture strength—with just enough air to ensure theoretically complete combustion of the fuel while diesel engines run lean (less fuel than required for stoichiometric mixture). In any case, combustion cannot

of an SI engine has to be much lower than that of a diesel engine in order to avoid knock—an abnormal combustion phenomenon which could cause engine damage. For these reasons, the SI engine has a lower efficiency than the diesel engine of the same capacity. However, diesel engines also produce NOx and particulate matter or smoke because the fuel and air are not fully mixed prior to combustion. Controlling these emissions is becoming increasingly important, but is very difficult.

Gautam T Kalghatgi Principal Scientist Fuels Technology Group Shell Global Solutions UK

A Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine potentially offers the high efficiency of a diesel engine, but with very low levels of smoke and NOx. In this type of engine, the fuel and air are fully pre-mixed as in an SI engine and compressed till the charge autoignites as in a diesel engine.

However, control of combustion is very difficult in HCCI and the maximum load attainable is rather limited. The most likely scenario is that HCCI-like combustion will become part of the combustion strategy in SI and diesel engines.

Thus, advanced diesel engines will try to promote more pre-mixed combustion where they can and HCCI combustion will be implemented in SI engines where possible, e.g. at low load.

Gasoline (also known as petrol) and diesel fuels are mixtures of hydrocarbons spanning very different boiling ranges. Typically gasoline has components boiling between 30°C and 200°C, whereas diesel fuel has a boiling range between 180°C and 360°C. However, the major difference between the fuels lies in their autoignition characteristics. Gasoline has to be resistant to autoignition to avoid knock—it has to have high octane numbers. Diesel, on the other hand, autoignites easily

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

69

engine and chassis

and the autoignition quality is measured by the cetane number (CN)—the higher the cetane number the more easily the fuel autoignites. There is an inverse relationship between the octane number and the cetane number of a fuel.

Conventional practical diesel fuels have CN greater than 40, whereas a typical European gasoline would have a CN of around 15.

Gasoline-like fuels in CI engines

Work done by Shell and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH),

injected much earlier in the engine cycle, so that the fuel and air had much more opportunity to mix, the engine did not necessarily run. The unmixedness brought about by late (early compared to conventional diesel engines) injection ensured ignition and stable combustion. The phasing of heat release could be controlled by changing the start of injection, just as in conventional diesel combustion in this operable range. Thus, the engine could be run on gasoline in this partially pre-mixed mode with in-cycle control

Advanced diesel engines The main strategy used in advanced diesel engines to control NOx and smoke is to promote low-temperature pre-mixed combustion. However, conventional diesel fuels are not suited for pre-mixed CI combustion. In modern direct injection diesel engines, fuel injection starts near TDC (Top Dead Centre), at the top of the compression stroke. The diesel fuel ignites very quickly and as the fuel injection proceeds, most of the fuel burns before it has had a chance to mix sufficiently with air. In fact, most of the high-end technology used in advanced diesel engines that makes them complicated and expensive, is required to promote pre-mixed combustion by overcoming the propensity of diesel fuel to autoignite easily.

Thus, high injection pressures and high swirl are used to increase mixing rates while high levels of cooled EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation), lower compression ratios, late injection are used to delay combustion; this in turn requires higher boost pressures to achieve the required loads. EGR also reduces the temperature at which combustion occurs. Even then, low NOx and low smoke are possible only at low loads. Modern engines now require after-treatment systems to further reduce these pollutants, making them even more complicated and expensive. Moreover, these strategies aimed at reducing emissions reduce fuel efficiency thus eroding the primary advantage of the diesel engine over the SI engine. If fuels that are more resistant to autoignition than conventional diesel are used, pre-mixed combustion, and hence low NOx and less smoke could be more easily attained.

Stockholm, has shown that a diesel engine can be run on a standard European gasoline with great advantage compared to a low-sulphur diesel fuel. This work has been reported in two technical papers published by the Society of Automotive Engineers: SAE 2006-01-3385 and SAE 2007-01-006.

A single cylinder research engine could be run very easily on gasoline if the start of injection (SOI) was between 15 and 30 crank angle degrees before TDC. However, if the same fuel was

70

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

over combustion phasing even if it could not run in fully pre-mixed, HCCI mode. However, compared to diesel fuel, gasoline ignites much later after the injection starts—fuel and air are “premixed enough” by the time combustion occurs. This leads to much lower smoke and NOx emissions compared to diesel fuel.

Of course, gasoline has higher volatility compared to diesel fuel. This is an advantage in operating regimes where fuel impinges on internal engine

surfaces—a less volatile fuel leads to increased smoke emissions in such conditions. A higher volatility fuel would afford more flexibility in choosing fuel injection strategies. However, in most other operating regimes, this difference is far less important than the difference in autoignition resistance between these fuels. In general, in direct injection CI engines, fuel vapourisation is less of a problem than fuel / air mixing before combustion and the higher the ignition delay, the better is this mixing.

A problem associated with premixed CI combustion is high pressure rise rates and noise resulting from high heat release rates. This can be alleviated by using multiple injection strategies and shaping the heat release phasing.

In such operation, significant amounts of gasoline can be injected very early in the cycle. This will cause a fuel / air mixture to be formed in the cylinder without causing heat release during the compression stroke because of the resistance to autoignition of gasoline; a second pulse of fuel near TDC then triggers combustion. It can be so arranged that all the fuel is injected before heat release starts even at reasonably high loads. This ensures low smoke while EGR can be used to control NOx. This strategy is not possible with diesel fuel because even small amounts of fuel injected very early in the cycle produce heat release during the compression stroke, reducing the efficiency and also the ignition delay associated with the second pulse of fuel. Higher loads were achievable with gasoline compared to diesel fuel at the same intake conditions for the same emissions levels. There should be a lot of scope for improvements through optimising injectors and injection strategies—in modern direct injection engines up to six fuel pulses can be injected in one cycle.

Of course, further work is needed to understand the effect of engine size and higher engine speeds, which will reduce the time available for autoignition

engine and chassis

on “pre-mixed enough” compression ignition of gasoline. The engine has to be started and must also run well at low loads and in transient operation. Another problem associated with pre-mixed CI combustion is higher Hydrocarbon and Carbon Monoxide emissions. However, many of these problems might be more easily solved than trying to reduce smoke and NOx while using conventional diesel fuels.

A CI engine operating on gasoline through the entire range is conceivable.

Such an engine could be started using spark ignition, run in HCCI mode, with a single injection pulse early in the cycle at low loads; this would require the use of internal EGR through variable valve timing or other thermal management. At high loads the fuel-

to develop this concept already exists in such prototype engines or in advanced diesel engines. Indeed, some aspects of this technology might be simplified by using gasoline-like fuels; it might be possible to use lower injection pressures, lower EGR levels and hence lower boost pressures because of the higher ignition delay.

Conclusion

A “pre-mixed enough” CI engine running on gasoline-like fuels offers significant scope for simplification and cost reduction in advanced diesel engines, where almost all the expensive technology is in place to overcome the problems presented by the easy ignitability of diesel fuels. It will also have higher efficiency compared to a

Of course, gasoline has higher volatility compared to diesel fuel. This is an advantage in operating regimes where fuel impinges on internal engine surfaces—a less volatile fuel leads to increased smoke emissions in such conditions. conventional SI engine. The driver for change, better efficiency at low cost and low emissions, is powerful since it will come from regulation as well as customer demand. Hence, there is a good chance that the development effort required to make this concept practical will happen, especially since almost all the engine technology needed is already available.

A uthor

ling rate would be increased by additional injection pulses later in the cycle, including one near TDC. The engine will need to have an oxidising catalyst to control HC and CO emissions, a turbocharger or a supercharger and a variable valve train to control the HCCI part of the combustion. This would be very similar to HCCI / SI prototype engines that have been announced by GM and Mercedes-Benz. These engines use gasoline, are started using a spark plug, run in HCCI mode at low load with early fuel injection and switch to SI combustion at high load.

The efficiency of such engines could be improved if they could be run in CI mode at high load as well since their compression ratios, which are limited by the need to avoid knock in the SI mode, can be increased. Thus, the technology

In the short term (<10 years), conventional diesel fuel (CN>40) will continue to be used in CI engines because there has been so much investment made in developing the engine and after-treatment technology for such systems. This is particularly true for light duty engines. The practical debate on fuel autoignition quality in CI engines in the short term is about whether the minimum cetane specification of diesel fuels should be increased in areas where it is low (e.g.

U.S.A), not whether diesel fuel should be replaced by gasoline. Since future advanced engines seek to promote premixed combustion, higher fuel cetane number, which reduces ignition delay, will certainly not help; it might hinder such operation.

In the long term, fuels much more like today’s gasoline rather than today’s diesel fuel could be used in CI engines to great advantage. The extent to which this is practically possible depends on whether other critical requirements for a practical engine such as good transient and low-speed operation, low noise and low cost can be met. Taking into account the fuel manufacturing efficiencies, the optimum fuel could have a lower octane number and lower volatility (higher full boiling point) compared to today’s gasolines. If such a fuel is to constitute the majority of refinery output—as a majority of the engines would be CI engines because of their higher efficiency—the consequences for fuel manufacturing, energy balances and well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions need to be understood.

Gautam Kalghatgi is a Principal Scientist in the Fuels Technology Group at Shell Global Solutions in the UK where he has worked since 1979. He is a Visiting Professor at Sheffield University and was an Adjunct Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. He is a Fellow of the SAE and of the I.Mech.E. He graduated in 1972 with a B.Tech from IIT, Bombay and got his PhD in aeronautical engineering in 1975 from Bristol university. He has published over 80 papers on different aspects of combustion, fuels and engine research and holds three patents.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

71

3D Computer Aided Industrial Design Demystifying the myths

Understanding cost, quality, benefits and drawbacks associated with 3D computer aided design and the process industrial designers work through can assist in better product development decisions.

I

ndustrial designers help create stylish forms for products in the automotive and other industries. Besides traditional methods, industrial designers use 3D CAD tools to create and design these forms alongside engineers, marketers, and others involved in product design and development. Unfortunately, there are myths, misconceptions, and misunderstandings associated with 3D CAD among project team members and industrial designers. This article discusses issues of cost, quality, benefits, and drawbacks associated with 3D computer aided design and the process of industrial design.

72

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

ID in auto / product development

Issues in computer aided industrial design (CAID) are sometimes difficult to navigate through; understanding industrial designers themselves can be a challenge for some as well. Their approach, process, methodology and goals can appear on the surface as undisciplined, unstructured and chaotic. Some describe what industrial designers do as “amazing”. However, this can simply be code for, “I don’t understand what they just did, but I like it.” Of course, there are those who occasionally say, “I don’t understand what they did, and I hate it.” Whether one appreciates what industrial designers do or not, it

James Arnold Assistant Professor, Industrial Design Department of Design The Ohio State University, USA

usually takes years of experience, working with industrial designers, to begin to understand and appreciate the process and approach.

The form giving process in industrial design usually involves exploration.

Ambiguity, especially at the beginning of the design process, is something that industrial designers deal with routinely.

Exploring many different forms in search of the ideal one is a standard practice. The seemingly effortless 2D sketch work, a hallmark of good designers, is an example of this form exploration. Taken into the 3D realm, some industrial designers seek to expand the form exploration

D esign and testing

activity using software such as Alias Studio (now owned by Auto Desk) or Rhino. A non-uniform rational b-spine (������� NURBS)� modelling software like Alias allows a designer to explore form, at a relatively fast pace, without the structured, and often time-consuming, modelling process that solid or parametric modelling software (e.g. pro-E and SolidWorks) demands.

Industrial designers sometimes refer to this kind of modelling as “3D sketching”.

The benefits of 3D sketching are apparent to designers; images can be created to help “sell” a concept to executives, or help a focus group understand the design intent, or create excitement around a certain idea without lengthy modelling time investments. Or it can simply be an activity that helps the designer explore and develop form. The potential drawback of this activity exists when a designer carries the same, sometimes unstructured (or sloppy) modelling approach into the part / engineering design activity. An engineer working with an industrial designer who fails to create more refined models will undoubtedly become frustrated—or will choose to model everything over again.

So, the intent of industrial designers isn’t always to create a 3D model for an engineer or tooling specialist, but may also be to simply explore. Exploration is necessary, NURBS modelling is helpful in the process, but it must be understood by all stakeholders that there is a time for exploration / visualisation and there is a time in the design process for part design. The main misconception here is that NURBS modelling, common in industrial design, isn’t effective at creating good models. NURBS modelling can, in fact, be highly effective while creating final part designs—it mainly depends on how the NURBS package is used. NURBS can facilitate switching between lateral (divergent and exploratory) and linear (convergent and refining) activities in the design process.

An alternative to using packages like Alias or Rhino would be for the industrial designer to simply use the same package that the engineers use. This approach, in

many cases, facilitates a highly collaborative, concurrent and parallel product development. The main potential drawback is that the industrial designer may find the solid / parametric modelling package weaker in terms of flexibility, visualisation (e.g. rendering), and the ability to create freeform products in an exploratory manner. An engineer would be similarly hampered if a CAID or NURBS modeler were the only options available; because CAD packages are, in many cases, equipped with engineering specific tools (e.g. finite element analysis) and are well suited to final part design (e.g. part wall thicknesses, ribs, bosses, sheet metal design etc.).

Cost = quality?

NURBS users often encounter a misconception that NURBS programs such as Alias Studio and Rhino are less effective when it comes to rapid prototyping or for producing data files that can be used for tooling. This misconception probably stems from the fact that NURBS modelling software allows for extreme modelling flexibility and allows inconsistencies not typically found in solid / parametric modelling programs. For example, one can create a 3D NURBS model with gaps between surfaces which appear continuous when viewed on screen but present problems when transferred to rapid prototyping machines or parametric / solid modelling programs. When a NURBS user employs proper techniques, usable surfaces that have little or no difficulty transferring to other programs or CAD packages can be created. Problems arise usually due to the fault of the program user and not the software. Solid / parametric modelling programs such as Pro-E or Solidworks typically do not have the capabilities or inherent flexibility of NURBS programs and the resulting myth can be that solid modelling programs are “better.”

Cost of some 3D CAD or CAID packages sometimes means more efficient tools—not higher quality. For example, an Alias Studio user might think that because it was purchased for US$ 25,000,

a higher quality model can be achieved than if Rhino was used. Again, quality in this situation might depend heavily on the software user and not the software being used. Efficiency and model quality are not the same and should not be confused. It may be true that Alias Studio has some very effective tools that can aid in the modelling process, but that does not necessarily mean that the Rhino user will have a more difficult time creating tooling ready surfaces, getting concepts to production, or solving highly complex modelling challenges using Rhino priced at under US$ 1,000.

Experience required?

The industrial designer’s skill level largely determines the efficiency and effectiveness of 3D sketching and refined modelling for part design. A model that would take an experienced CAID user an afternoon to make might take several days for a recent industrial design graduate. Whether using a NURBS package, parametric package, or a hybrid such as Unigraphics, the industrial designer needs time to develop skill and knowledge. Some skill level can be reached in design school, but speed and efficiency will usually take time; months and years—especially if the industrial designer must use multiple CAD packages.

Creativity, training, preference, access to other designers, and experience also influence the ability of an industrial designer to accomplish CAID tasks. Like anything else, there is no substitute for experience and exposure.

Designers of an award winning automobile said, “The math-based tools allowed us to get to a full-size 3D sketch very quickly so that everyone could interact with it and understand easily how it could translate into an actual production vehicle.” This statement suggests that 3D CAD and CAID tools in general can be thought of as distinct within a virtual space that can be used to facilitate activities or help us manipulate things as one goes through the design process. A computer in a design studio represents not only a tool, but a kind of portal into

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

73

D esign and testing

Programme dominance

There are myths about the popularity of certain leading design software packages as well. Alias, Unigraphics and Catia are by far the most popular in the auto industry. However, this is not true in other industries. In fact, Unigraphics, and Catia (typically used as CAD packages) are a small minority in many other industries. This may be true for automotive parts suppliers and is certainly true in consumer products industries. The most popular engineering software pack-

74

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

ages used in product design today are Pro-Engineer and Solidworks. Industrial designers typically use these parametric / solids modeling packages or they may use NURBS packages like Alias or Rhino, Solidworks and Pro-Engineer rank almost equal in popularity among industrial designers. A high percentage of industrial designers are required to know both NURBS and parametric / solid modelling packages Interestingly, industrial design schools specialised in automotive / transportation design primarily teach Alias. Graduating students are typically only equipped with NURBS skills and are therefore, in certain situations, illequipped to operate in a concurrent and collaborative fashion with engineers where the same 3D files are manipulated by different disciplines. However, for many years, industrial designers have made a practice of supplying 3D model files to engineers through a universal file format (e.g. .iges, .step, or “direct connect”). When engineers get these surface files they are unable to manipulate or modify them. Many industrial designers opine that this is not a problem because design intent and integrity is assured. There are those that will counter this with the argument for a more collaborative / concurrent approach using common software between designers and engineers. Some industrial design educational programmes recognise this and teach both NURBS and parametric modelling; especially those programmes that help students prepare for product design in general (not specifically for transportation design).

A uthor

a parallel studio space where various tools are used and design is facilitated. Simply describing the computer as a “tool” fails to recognise the vital role it plays in the current and future process of product design. In the world of fast passed product design, fluency in 3D virtual space is a necessary skill and knowledge base for all participants involved in the design process.

Unfortunately the skill and knowledge level of managers and executives are mostly limited in their ability to navigate virtual space unless they have a CAD or CAID background. Managers and executives are, in a sense, cut off from the design process and can have difficulty interacting with the design as intimately as designers and engineers can. Prior to computer technology, this was not a problem because drawings and physical models were inherently more accessible to those without specialised skill.

Fortunately, there are free and easy to install “viewers” available such as Solidwork’s eDrawings, which can run on many desktop and laptop computers. A program like eDrawings allows anyone to open a model file and view it, rotate it, notate it, and otherwise see for themselves what the state of design is in virtual space. Also, the interfaces of many CAD and CAID packages are intuitive enough for even a child to open a file, rotate, zoom, pan etc. on a typical computer. With minimal effort, many can collaborate in virtual space as opposed to only a few, highly skilled individuals.

Conclusion

CAD and CAID myths are present in the minds of many of us who work in product development. The source of these myths are varied but there are at least four that appear to be significant which have been discussed in this article, namely: differences in discipline perspective (e.g. engineers and industrial designers); cost does not necessarily mean higher quality models; high level computer modelling skill is not necessarily needed to interact in virtual space; and program dominance depends on the kind of company, industry, and design process employed.

Knowing the goals of the company, the appropriate design process to achieve those goals, and what resources are available for CAD and / or CAID tools is critical to setting up an effective 3D virtual design and engineering studio space. Unfortunately, there remain certain conditions that can inhibit good decision making and understanding.

These conditions are habit and sales promotion. Habit, in the form of experienced CAD or CAID users who are comfortable in their expertise and are unwilling to change if necessary for the greater good of the organisation or industry they serve. And sales promotion, much like political campaigns, 3D software companies need profits to exist which can motivate persuasive arguments for a particular software package that may or may not be the right choice for a company with certain goals, resources, and a preferred design process. Like anything else, it is wise to be aware of differing perspectives and get plenty of second opinions.

James Arnold is Assistant Professor in the Department of Design, The Ohio State University. His professional experience includes industrial design in the transportation and health care industries.

James has managed the design activity for numerous successful products, from concept to production, and has been a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) since 1997.

His published research includes topics dealing with user-centered design, design history, and virtual product development.

D esign and testing

Redesigning Product Development Process The sequential, segmented, build and test aspects of traditional automotive design and development processes no longer meet the needs of the emerging technology and present day knowledge. It is time to redesign the automotive product development processes.

constantly innovate their design process to stay competitive.

Process attributes

For designing a process or a product, a set of well-defined attributes, criteria derived from these attributes, and specified targets for different criteria need to be established. To guide the redesign of a PD process, it is important to identify a few key attributes which are discussed below.

Some of the most common criteria will be mentioned as examples but the full set of criteria along with the corresponding set of targets for each criteria need to be established, based on the specific corporate goals, capabilities and culture.

Profitability: Profitability is the most fundamental attribute for an effective PD process. An effective PD should drive

business success by achieving the following four criteria: • Maximising innovation • Maximising quality • Minimising cost • Minimising time to market Targets specified for these criteria should be viewed as multi-sub-objectives to be aspired to achieve success and profitability. In execution, gaps in these targets should be used to drive functional optimisation as well as functional participation in the process.

Simplicity: It can be achieved by reducing process complexity in three main dimensions—number of elements, number and strength of ties between elements, and streamlining. Process must be simple with simplified tasks and focus should be on what is important.

Ulrich and Eppinger PD process Product Launch

P

roduct Development (PD) process could be viewed as the sequence of events needed to translate an idea into a realised product. From their point of inception, most product development processes are created by engineers and scientists with highly analytical skills.

These skills are manifested in tackling the complexity through breaking down the system into smaller steps supported by a series of physical build-and-test. For this reason, most automotive design and development processes are traditionally sequential and segmented in nature as illustrated in Figure 1. Also, in addition to the multitude of knowledge and skill sets needed to create a product, the lack of fast and reliable modelling and simulation tools caused separation not only between design and manufacturing but also between design and analysis for many years.

Since 1980s, due to competitive pressures, automotive PD processes have achieved some level of integration and concurrency. Terms like architectural integration, performance integration, and concurrent engineering are shaping new paradigms in automotive industry.

The new paradigms reflect the current and near future reality of the industry.

Besides producing innovative, low cost, high quality products with minimum time to market, auto companies need to

Mohamed El-Sayed Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Director Hybrid Electric Vehicle Systems Integration Laboratory Kettering University USA

Mission Statement

Concept Development

System-level Design

Detailed Design

Testing & Refinement

Production Ramp-up Figure 1

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

75

D esign and testing

Uncertainty and cost of corrective actions Uncertainty about constraints and opportunities

Cost and time of corrective actions

Early Phase (Concept generation and Product Planning)

Implementation (Product and Process design)

Modularity: From an engineering perspective, modularity generally has three criteria—reducing complexity, parallelism and addressing uncertainty.

Modularity addresses uncertainity by being able to change elements of a modular design easily.

Transparency: A transparent process allows executers to have a complete view and understanding of its entirety.

An important aspect of a transparent PD process is not only having access to know-how but also know-why.

Innovation sustainability: Innovating is a key attribute for competitiveness and sustained success, growth, and profitability. Innovation, however, is the most difficult attribute to achieve due to the high level of uncertainty. Due to the high uncertainity, the DP early phases are known in the literature as the fuzzyfront-end.

In order to cope with fuzziness and create clear vision for innovation teams, organisations need to: 1. Estimate and anticipate downstream issues to make the corrections early.

2. Work in cross-functional manner and manage innovation activities.

Continuity: An effective PD Process should have well-integrated phases and seamless transition for optimised flow. It also should have the following criteria: • Integration of the front-end with the field support at the back end • Customer driven • Localised problem solving cycles

76

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Figure 2

Seeing PD as a process of repeated problem-solving at different levels can shorten lead time by performing the problem-solving cycles faster, by overlapping them, by reducing the total number of cycles, and by identifying and solving problems early using virtual simulations.

Concurrency: The success of a PD process to minimise product development time and cost, and maximise quality depends on the level of concurrency at all process phases. Concurrent engineering in the realisation phase directly affects the product design and manufacturability. Also, the concurrency between marketing, planning, styling and engineering at the early phases can be vital to guarantee one directional flow between the different phases of the process.

Concurrent engineering has been, to some extent, successfully implemented at most companies today. The reason is that most of the activities involve engineering with some level of mutual understanding among all participants.

More synergy, however, is needed among all the engineering activities, with the availability of simulation tool all desired attributes, criteria and specified targets should be addressed simultaneously.

More attention for concurrency should be given during the early phases of the product development process where it is cheaper to solve problems.

Late design change, when specifications are frozen and tools ordered, may

be very costly and time-consuming.

By “front-loading” information-gathering and problem-solving activities to the early phases, the project execution phase can become faster and smoother.

The challenge for concurrency at early phases is due to different disciplines with a wide spread of cognitive diversity interacting with each other. For this reason, selection of team members and training programmes are key elements for success.

Measurability: Product development success can be measured by Lead time and engineering hours, number of delays and late changes, market shares and profitability.

Improvement: Continuous improvement should be integral to the process and all its phases through the use of a closed loop mechanism. Closed loop improvement mechanisms can be achieved by using the product performance gaps to improve the entire process.

Manageability: Having a management structure to manage the flow of multiple phases across all process functions can be greatly facilitated by process modularity, simplicity, continuity and transparency attributes. Also, realising the strong relationship between PD process architecture and the organisational structure of a company can help in improving the manageability and efficiency of the personnel interactions required to implement the PD process architecture.

Process phases

To develop the PD process with all the discussed attributes one can observe the natural process of a foetus creation starting with inception, then conception and growth (development) and finally delivery. Also, one can visualise the steps designers take to create a new product.

These steps followed are the natural steps for creation. First, the designer comes up with many ideas from different sources (pre-inception or idea gathering). These ideas will be holistically thought and

D esign and testing

Outline of the three-phase PD process

Revolutionised(RPD) Evolved(EPD) Improved(IPD)

Idea Dev/Val

Conception

Concurrent Engineering

Targets

Inception

Concept Featuring

Criteria

Attributes

Ideas

Idea Genesis

Product design

Realisation

Product Dev/Val

Concept Dev/Val

Quality Development

VOC VOC VOC Idea Specification (Portfolio)

Concept Specification (Portfolio)

Product Specification (Portfolio)

Process Specification (Portfolio) Figure 3

the ones with success potential will be sketched or outlined (idea specification).

These specified ideas will be further studied, altered, and combined (ideas development and validation). Some of them turn into concepts (concept specificationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;transition between inception and conception). Depending on the type and level of skills, the designer will start building a virtual or physical model of the concept and will use this model to perform different simulation (concept development and validation). At this point, the successful concept can be further defined in terms of requirements for mass production, durability, specific performance etc. (product specification).

For mass production (using modelling and simulation to perform analysis and integration) design and manufacturing studies are conducted until the product meets specified target and the manufacturing process developed for it meets production targets.

Following the concept of one designer, it can be postulated that a company setting a PD Process should mobilise all participants in product development and make them think and act as a single designer. The difference, however, is that in a company setting parallel execution of the main phases and concurrent execution inside each phase should be performed. Figure 3 outlines a developed PD process based on these observations and the attributes described in the previous section.

This process consists of three phases namely inception, conception, and realisation. An additional phase for Processing (formed according to the process specification) can be added at the ramp-up end. Each phase consists of two transitional end-phases and a development / validation phase. The activities in each phase are concurrent.

The transitional sub-phases occur as portfolio activities aimed at developing

specification. These specifications flow from product attributes defined in the customer domain in the inception phase to design criteria in the conception phase to product targets (Technical Specs) in the realisation phase. The lower arrows in Figure 3 represent the voice of the customer feedback loop to different phases. The upper arrows represent the level of design change in the product for different new product cycles.

From the process flow, it can be seen that besides simplicity and similarities between the phases, each phase represents a stand-alone module assuring the process modularity. While the process flow is presented in a sequential form at a steady state operation, all three modules can run in parallel and connect when needed. The separation between inception and realisation with the conception phase as a buffer allows for front-end innovation and easy management of the fuzzy-front-end without disturbing the flow of new concepts into the realisation phase. By following the natural intuition and similarity, the process transparency can be enhanced. By using the internal and external feedbacks along with the simple structure at each phase, continuous improvement can also be achieved.

The process also provides natural usage of Total Quality Management and Design for Six Sigma. For example, voice of the customer can guide all the specification and development / validation phases. Quality function deployment can be implemented at the concept specification portfolio while robust design methodology can be applied during the realisation phase.

Process implementation

The successful implementation of any process depends on the proper execution at every step. This translates into taking the right actions at the right time. This in turn requires having the right teams using the right tools. For the proper implementation, to realise the PD process attributes, having the right teams and using the appropriate virtual modelling

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

77

D esign and testing

Teams

For maximising innovation and assuring timely execution, each phase must have the right team with the appropriate thought process, brain dominance, and communication skills. The inception phase is the most holistic, innovative and creative phase with right brain cerebral dominance. The language and communication at this phase should be holistic in terms of attributes (the customer language) until the specification stage or sub-phase is reached. At the end of this phase, a set of ideas with specified attributes for each are passed on to the conception phase.

At the conception phase cerebral right and left brain (cognitive) dominance with more emphasis on innovation is required.

The language at this phase is design criteria until the specification sub phase is reached. The realisation phase is the most structured analytical phase (concurrent engineering). The dominance in this phase is for left brain cerebral thinking and the language is design targets.

Understanding the nature of each phase is as important as understanding the function for proper staffing and team formation. Concurrency however should be maintained by having a properly weighted representation from all disciplines by selecting the individuals, from each discipline, with the proper knowledge, skills, and brain dominance. The guiding principle here is that: It is important to maintain high level of creativity and holistic thinking at the front end of the process as it is important to have a structured analytical thinking at the other end. Figure 4 illustrates the ideal transition of thinking dominance during the process.

For example, linking marketing to the innovation, a European car manufacturer introduced a very early phase called ‘strategy phase’ with different

‘innovation fields’, where innovations are tied to customer requirements and wishes.

These innovation themes are organised in several portfolios, which in turn are linked in a logical sequence through road maps. After brainstorming, the ideas are reduced from more than 1000 to 20-50 within 3-4 weeks, ultimately developing very simple prototypes. “Finding ideas is not the problem, selecting the best ones is,” said the company.

Virtual modelling and simulation

For achieving the rest of the profitability criteria, namely, maximising quality, minimising cost and reducing time to market, concurrency at all PD phases and front loading are necessary. Figure 5, shows the effect of concurrent engineering on product development time.

To implement concurrency in the early PD process, phases (frontloading) and the realisation phase (concurrent

Ideal transition of thinking dominance Analytical Thinking Holistic Thinking Inception

Conception

Realisation Figure 4

Effects of concurrent engineering TT

“Mountain is moved” TT = Technical Trial PP = Pre-Production MP = Mass Production

PP

Number of problems identified

and simulation tools in each phase are essential. In the following sections, we briefly discuss those two issues as they relate to the four criteria of the profitability attribute discussed above.

PP

TT

MP

MP

Product development lead-time

Figure 5

Lexmark linear vs Concurrent models Lexmark Concurrent Engineering Time Savings Linear Model 3%

27%

55% Revisions & Iterations

Concept Architecture 33%

15% Ramp

Design 22%

37%

8%

40% Savings

Concurrent Model Mentor Graphic Case Study Figure 6

78

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

D esign and testing

successful concurrency and front loading is the use of correlated virtual modelling and simulation tools. The use of virtual tool is the main pillar for establishing the key process attributes. Luckily, virtual tools for all process phases are available and are rapidly maturing.

For example, significant reductions in the real time-to-market (time to stable production) is accomplished thorough early optimisation of the conceptual / architecture phase by the Lexmark models.

A uthor

engineering), the appropriate modelling and simulation tools are required.

As a matter of fact, the process, architecture, execution, and improvement will not be possible without having the right modelling and simulation tool for each phase.

By carefully examining the fundamental activities in all PD phase development / validation, one will find that whether it is idea genesis, decision making, concept featuring, architectural design, performance analysis or integration, the building blocks are modelling and simulation.

Modelling and simulation tools can be mental, virtual or physical. Mental modelling and simulation is useful in brain storming and idea generation since it is individualistic in nature. Physical modelling and simulation are slow and costly and needed only at the final physical validation if virtual tools are not as reliable or available. Therefore, the key to

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are two main contributing elements to product development, in addition to tools and resources at any corporate settingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;people and processes.

Out of the two elements, people are the key asset because it is people who develop processes and use them to develop products. Having the right people in the right roles, in addition to developing and implementing the right processes is the key to continuous success and profitability in a highly competitive market.

Mohamed El-Sayed is a professor of Mechanical engineering and director of the Hybrid Electric Vehicle Systems Integration Laboratory, Kettering University. He is the current editor of the SAE journal of Materials and Manufacturing. Dr. El-Sayed has over thirty years of teaching experience in the area of design, design simulation, design optimization, and automotive design. Dr. ElSayed has over twenty years of Automotive Design, Development, and Validation experience.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

79

C omponents and ancillaries

Matrix Infrared Sensor System To improve in-vehicle climate

The world’s first matrix infrared can estimate each passenger’s thermal condition by sensing his / her surface temperature and controls climate condition in the passenger compartment according to the thermal conditions.

Takuya Kataoka Project Manager Air-conditioning R&D Department DENSO Corporation Japan

V

arious improvements in air conditioning and heating systems have been achieved to improve thermal comfort in passenger compartments.

In the past, the target of the heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) system was to merely warm or cool the compartment. Recently, however, the system has been developed and improved to control the climatic condition including air temperature and airflow for each

80

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

passenger seat. Meanwhile, the method of climate control has been changing from manual control to automatic control.

A room air temperature sensor, ambient air temperature sensor and solar radiation sensor are used to automatically control air conditioning in the passenger compartment, thus realising climate control more elaborately than manual control. However, conventional automatic climate control controls the cabin air

temperature based on the thermal load within the cabin. Considering these situations, a new sensing method of thermal condition at each seat has been required to conduct more effective control of the latest 4-zone HVAC system and improve each passenger’s thermal comfort. To meet this requirement, an infrared (IR) sensor is expected to improve climate comfort of each passenger by utilising feedback of passenger’s thermal conditions.

Matrix IR sensor

The newly developed matrix IR sensor utilises the basic structure and principle of thermopile IR sensor.

Figure 1

Areas where surface temperature is detected

Figure 2

Infrared sensor

Currently, IR sensors are used in thermometers, thermographs, human body sensors, human motion sensors, night vision scope cameras and other devices. In the field of automobiles, active safety systems such as night view monitors and driver monitoring systems using shortwave infrared radiation have been developed and introduced in the market to improve vehicle

safety. In such systems, shortwave infrared radiation is used to detect objects. On the other hand, long wave infrared radiation is well-known for sensing an objectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface temperature. A thermopile IR sensor can be used for detecting an objectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface temperature by detecting long wave infrared from the object.

Figure 3 shows the basic structure of a thermopile IR sensor. The thermopile

is constructed with many thermocouples connected in a series in order to sense very small temperature differences generated by the infrared radiation. Infrared radiation emitted from an object is collected at hot junctions to cause the temperature difference between hot and cold junctions, and the temperature difference generates electricity. Moreover, the electric voltage between the hot and cold junctions is amplified in order to

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

81

C omponents and ancillaries

Structure and principle of thermopile infrared sensor

Infrared radiation

Thermopile

Filter

Hot Junction

Can

Pins

Stem

Thermistor

Cold Junction

Figure 3

Outline of the system

Matrix IR sensor

LIN Electronic Control Unit

4-zone control Front HVAC • Rear Face • B Pillar • Rear Foot Rear air conditioner • Rear Side • Ceiling Figure 4

sense radiant energy. The temperature of the object is calculated from the radiant energy and the temperature of the cold junction by using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for black body radiation.

82

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

Matrix infrared sensor

The newly developed matrix IR sensor shown in Figure 1 utilises the basic structure and principle of thermopile IR sensor. The matrix IR sensor simultaneously detects temperatures at six separate

locations. This sensor has a thermopile tip composed of six sets of hot and cold junctions disposed on the tip. The sensor is equipped with a condensing lens that gathers infrared radiation emitted from widely distributed locations within the passenger compartment to the six hot junctions. Additionally, a cover made of infrared transparent resin is provided to meet design requirements.

The matrix IR sensor can be installed in the centre of the ceiling panel in the vehicle, and is designed to detect the upper body (an area around the chest) and the lower body (an area between the waist and the thighs) of rear seat passengers.

An overview of climate control system using the matrix IR sensor is shown in Figure 4. Signals of the temperatures sensed by the matrix IR sensor from six locations are transmitted to the air conditioning electronic control unit (ECU). The air conditioning ECU then calculates the appropriate air conditioning settings based on the signals and controls the 4-zone HVAC system and rear air-conditioning system to adjust air temperature, airflow, and air outlet mode for each passenger. Thus, the matrix IR sensor helps realise climate control that is more suitable for passengers’ thermal comfort than conventional controls. Also, the matrix IR sensor enables thermal history control.

Figure 5 shows exemplified scenes in which the thermal history control can be effectively conducted. In summer, a passenger who has just entered a vehicle from the hot outside environment generally has a higher surface temperature and feels hotter than a person who has already been cooled inside the vehicle.

The similar situation can be considered in winter.

In these situations, the matrix IR sensor senses passengers’ surface temperature, and the air conditioning ECU controls the HVAC system to provide warmer air when the surface temperature is low, or cooler air when the surface temperature is high. This

C omponents and ancillaries

Scenes of thermal history control

Summer

Hot passenger gets in

Winter

Cold passenger gets in

Figure 5

Conclusion

As described above, the matrix IR sensor enables to control climate conditions according to passengers’ thermal conditions and improves the thermal comfort of passengers using a synergy effect of the 4-zone HVAC system. IR sensors are expected to improve thermal comfort of

A uthor

control helps improve the passenger’s thermal comfort quickly without affecting the other passenger’s condition.

Comparison of evaluation results of the thermal sensation of passengers after he / she enters a vehicle, with and without the matrix IR sensor is done.

The evaluations were conducted at two temperature conditions—35 degrees and 0 degrees. According to the evaluation results, at both conditions, it took more than four minutes for a passenger to reach a neutral feeling when the matrix IR sensor was not used. On the contrary, when the matrix IR sensor was used, thermal feeling recovered in just two minutes.

each passenger in passenger compartments. The author also expects further developments in climate control systems that function based on passenger’s thermal sensations by sensing passenger’s skin temperature in addition to the surface temperatures through clothes.

Takuya Kataoka is a project manager at Air-conditioning R&D department, DENSO Corporation in Japan and has been responsible for developing new products of climate control in passenger compartments. He holds Ph.D and was a researcher of Simulation Technologies of Vehicle Aerodynamics and Climate Control including Thermal Comfort. Takuya is a member of Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Cabin Environment Technology Committee of the Society, Automotive Engineers of Japan, Inc.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

83

84

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

E lectrical and electronics

The Value of Voice

Easing access to complex functionality Recent surveys show that car drivers—private or professional—like to make use of the ever increasing information and entertainment services also in the car. But with traditional graphical user interfaces, these services are likely to be dangerous due to visual distraction.

D

rivers enjoy the growing number of services when on the road— navigation systems show the way to the destination and traffic information systems help avoid congestion. They can stay connected by hands-free telephony and infotainment systems to get the latest news, weather forecast and play music from their favourite collection. These highly popular services are indeed useful but they also bring with them the risk of diverting the driver’s attention.

speech interaction. Accustomed to the ubiquity of information through the internet, drivers increasingly demand for instantaneous and “always-on” access to web services like yellow pages, weather forecasts and free parking lots. When one has to travel through unfamiliar roads, these information sources become very much essential. Complex information of this kind requires a user interface that is intuitive, easy to apply and does not distract the driver’s attention from the

Natural Language Understanding (NLU), free dialogue capabilities, and robust recognition of large vocabulary are key features to make complex information accessible while driving.

Voice interaction has proven to combine a comfortable control of infotainment systems and telephony with minimal visual distraction from the road.

Established technology like command & control voice interfaces lets the driver select radio station and volume level, accept calls and dial phone numbers with less efforts of speech. Navigation is simplified by answering system prompts for city name and street name of the desired destination.

New services pave their way into the car that requires a new quality of

road. Legislation in some countries, for instance, already discusses whether the usage of visual distracting devices in cars should be restricted. Similarly, insurance companies increasingly refuse compensation for damages that can be attributed to the driver’s inattentiveness caused by screen reading.

The solution

The solution to this challenge is at the door: Advanced, feature-complete voice technology. Natural Language Understanding (NLU), free dialogue

Bernhard Kämmerer Head Professional Speech Processing Lutz Leutelt Consultant Professional Speech Processing Siemens AG Germany

capabilities, and robust recognition of large vocabulary are key features to make complex information accessible while driving. The driver can utter in his own words what he / she would like the system to do or what information should be retrieved from web services. Hence, the user does not have to follow exact commands anymore as the system can be simply assigned the task, for instance through a command, “guide me to the nearest medical practitioner.”

Useful cases corresponding to the new services and devices may include music title selection (“play everything of U2 in random order”), interaction with online-service like Yellow Pages or various kinds of web services (“I urgently need a doctor around”, “guide me to the nearest parking lot available,” “what are the cheapest petrol stations within the next 10 km on the route?”), or voice-interactive car manuals (“how do I open the engine hood?” “explain the cruise control to me,” “where is the gas inlet and how can I open it?”).

Natural Language Understanding is required at least for these solutions to release the user from the burden of a fixed set or a particular order of command words that need to be memorised. Besides a free dialogue style, mixed-initiative capabilities—that allow both the user and the system to take over the lead in

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

85

E lectrical and electronics

the dialogue whenever needed—add to a comfortable and natural dialogue. A driver will rarely be able to formulate a query with various parameters correctly and completely while driving. Therefore, the system should be able to deal with incomplete or potentially contradictory information, given in random order. For example, the request “I urgently need a hotel” leaves parameters like location, category, room type, and price range unanswered. The system takes over the initiative to clarify all required information in further dialogue steps before it can process the request. Features like over-answering allow the user to take back the initiative in the dialogue, e.g. for a system query: “What room type do you prefer?” the user may respond: “A single room, but for not more than US$ 60. And breakfast buffet shall be included.”

For this kind of complex requests, pure state-based dialogue handling would require an exploding effort for programming every condition and action. In contrast, frame-based dialogue engines narrow down to a simple specification of the application at hand while computing the necessary dialogue steps and initiating clarification dialogues automatically. Of course, the combination of both stateand frame-based approaches in a unified machine will deliver optimal benefits for both the industry and the user.

The ultimate solution for navigation destination entry is surely One-shot Destination Input. Compared to the simple sequential requests for city name, street name, and house number—each item being separated by a system beep, One-shot Destination Input allows the user to utter everything (or just parts) in one sentence. Unparalleled speed is the pleasant result. While European and Japanese drivers mainly prefer the sequence “city / district name, street/block name, house number,” US drivers are used to Street-name First which makes the recognition of up to 150,000 names (as for California) a must.

Feature completeness of the voice components, therefore, is necessary to

86

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

satisfy the expectations about today’s and tomorrow’s automotive infotainment solutions: • Robust command & control for infotainment control • Multi-language recognition for music title selection with NLU • Continuous, large-vocabulary recognition with true One-shot Destination Input (full address in a single phrase) and Street-name First for US • Natural dialogues for intuitive use and access to complex information like web services and car manuals.

In order to allow for those compelling voice abilities, advanced speech technology and components must be available.

Recogniser

The recogniser has to handle large vocabularies fast and accurate in automotive

the driver. It has to combine a state-based mode for simple command control and a frame-based mode for complex interactions. Complete control interfaces to the background applications are needed to provide feedback as soon as possible and give applications-specific hints that help the user to keep track with the application status.

Speech synthesis

The speech synthesis must be natural and smooth, with an option to steer the prosody for neutral or demanding output.

Corporate voices help OEMs to identify their products with the best impression, while multiple, selectable voices may meet individual preferences of the user.

Besides the complete functionality of the technology, a broad portability, standard interface like SAPI and JSAPI

Speech technology is currently in the process of becoming a standard feature in modern car infotainment systems. environments. Recognition of continuous speech is a must if the user should not be restricted to isolated commands.

Benchmarks should be set to identify the performance of recognisers and the real conditions in which they work. These benchmarks should be objectively proven by performance curves over automotive signal-to-noise ratio. The number of different recogniser languages in general must be adjusted according to the markets of the OEMs. However, multiple languages at one time are needed especially for the recognition of artists and song names.

Dedicated “pre-“and post-processing, and also speed optimisations have to be implemented for demanding tasks like One-shot Destination Input.

Dialogue engine

The dialogue engine has to support mixedinitiative dialogue, unrestricted information units, over-answering, multiple confirmations and garbage word handling to enable comfortable “speak as you like” to

and also the availability of optimised portings are key for the optimum integration of these products into most of the common embedded automotive platforms and OS, including support for latest DSP hardware.

Conclusion

Speech technology is currently in the process of becoming a standard feature in modern car infotainment systems.

More and more drivers gain experience with this new user interface and explore its benefits—although in today’s cars mostly command & control for basic functions and at the high end address entry that still requires multiple input steps is implemented. State-of-the-art technology, however, is available that allows for more: One-shot Destination input of addresses, multi-language musictitle selection, and natural voice dialogues to access web services, car manuals, and other complex information. While the former will already be part of high-end

E lectrical and electronics

technology is state-of-the-art and easy to integrate into a wide range of different systems. Based on a comprehensive portfolio of speech products—ranging from speech recognition to natural language voice dialogues and voice biometrics—and

A uthors

infotainment solutions of coming car models, the latter will require a paradigm change: the introduction of natural language dialogue engines. Then, an unequalled comfort-of-use and intuitiveness will be offered to the driver as answer to the ever increasing complexity of car features and in-car information provision.

It will also be an answer to the trend of car sharing and car rental: Drivers will often and increasingly have access to a variety of car brands and models, nevertheless they expect to get familiar with their features within short time.

Siemens has developed a futuristic technology for in-car voice interaction.

Professional Speech Processing (PSP), the technology center of Siemens for innovative speech components, has been at the forefront of speech technology for over 25 years. A dedicated innovation process from latest research to ready-to-use product components makes sure that the

making use of broad experience in various businesses like automotive, mobile, call-center, telephony, industrial, security, and medical, Siemens creates cross-sectors synergies beneficial for both automotive solutions and the other industries.

Bernhard Kämmerer is the Head of Professional Speech Processing Department at Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, Germany.

Kämmerer is responsible for speech technology development at Siemens with sites at Munich, Germany, Bangalore, India, and Beijing, China. He has experience in the area of signal processing for Human Machine Interaction, including speech and image processing, gesture recognition, biometrics, and artificial neural networks. He holds PhD in Information Science and master degree in Electrical Engineering.

Lutz Leutelt is a Consultant in the Department of Professional Speech Processing at Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, Germany.

He is responsible for the marketing of Siemens speech recognition and voice dialog technology. He is the project leader for “acoustic event detection systems”. Prior to this, he served as System Engineer with Philips Semiconductors, Automotive Innovation Center. He holds PhD in digital speech processing and master degree in electrical engineering and information technology.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

87

E lectrical and electronics

Connectivity

Two-way wireless data communications Automotive industry’s move towards a more comprehensive wireless in-vehicle ecosystem comprising several different platforms has increased the demand for wireless data communications.

T

he development of the mobile phone has enabled people to make calls also while driving.

When networks became fast enough, these devices helped them surf Internet, check emails and weather. The emergence of Bluetooth technology has enabled people to go hands-free while calling, and using GPS services they have begun to get directions on their mobile devices.

Voice is still the predominant service that is utilised in vehicles, but in the very near future, there is going to be a rapid emergence of two-way wireless data communications that will come in a variety of form factors and services.

This is going to have a dramatic effect on carriers worldwide in providing network connectivity for the solutions that will be developed to serve the growing need for in-vehicle wireless data applications.

The automotive industry has seen many new technologies in the last few years that have enhanced vehicle performance, increased safety, made HumanMachine Interface (HMI) platforms more advanced and provided improved GPS navigation services. These solutions will become more prevalent because of: • Increasing awareness and deployments globally • Clear ROI for businesses • Auto OEMs and manufacturers making investments • Shrinking cost of devices

88

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

• Reliable, ubiquitous and affordable wireless networks.

The industry is quickly moving from vertically integrated components to a more comprehensive wireless in-vehicle ecosystem comprising several different platforms. These improvements have increased the demand for wireless data communications in the global automotive market. The demand is especially more from the car manufacturers because it is expected that wireless applications will widely become standard features in

Ross Caplan Senior Partner and Development Manager M2M and Wireless Data Sprint Nextel USA

Many of these wireless solutions have seen tremendous growth in the commercial fleets market over the last ten years. The consumer market is just beginning to see the potential of deploying wireless data solutions in vehicles and the value they add to both consumers and manufacturers. The main questions that are being asked are what networks to deploy on (standardisation), what will the devices look like (mobile vs. fixed), what services can be offered to customers, and what business

The demand is especially more from the car manufacturers because it is expected that wireless applications will widely become standard features in most vehicles over the next five years to realise the vision of the “Connected Car.” most vehicles over the next five years to realise the vision of the “Connected Car.” Bluetooth-enabled solutions, infotainment platforms and telematics services are becoming common features in most vehicles. Automotive manufacturers and suppliers are beginning to leverage existing network infrastructures for developing new two-way wireless communication solutions for data applications. The objective is to have all cars Internet-enabled by 2010.

models will work best (who will offer the service, the carrier, the OEM, a retail store etc.)?

Specifically in-vehicle data communications, internet access, telematics and infotainment will be rapidly growing segments with consumers driving demand for these services. In the future, in-vehicle communications via new networks such as WiMAX (and potentially others) will further

E lectrical and electronics

WiMAX in the automotive connectivity market WiMAX is expected to have a dramatic growth effect on two-way wireless data solutions in the automotive ecosystem by anticipated capabilities such as enabling vehicles to be IP connection points and to operate at broadband speeds; providing live traffic information, streaming content (live IPTV/movies), downloading MP3s to your car’s music player and all of your vehicle’s telematics needs (vehicle diagnostics). The potential to do all these things at broadband speeds really makes WiMAX in the car a useful connectivity platform for end users and provides a new way for OEMs and manufacturers to develop and launch new products and services—especially since the car is an extension of their home and office for many people.

The rapid growth within the automotive and mobile device market should benefit many in the automotive and wireless ecosystem globally, especially if the current forecast for WiMAX deployments is accurate. There were 181 WiMAX operators in 2007 globally and this is expected to rise to 538 operators by 2012. The number of countries with WiMAX is expected to rise from 94 (out of the total 234 countries) at the end of 2007 to 201 in 2012.

hand-held devices, fixed hardware platforms (external data modems for in-vehicle solutions), and software for both mobile and fixed applications.

Ford Work Solutions, a strategic effort by Ford to bring further “Productivity” to their fleet of commercial vehicles, specifically F-Series and E-Series trucks best serves as an example of how auto manufacturers can utilise wireless two-way communications. The key aspect of the Sprint project is to provide the high speed wireless internet access via its Mobile Broadband Network (CDMA Rev A), to a PC, which will be mounted on the dashboard (in the space generally used for a radio, 6.5” x 5”). This will be the first “automotive grade” PC with Internet connectivity ever produced for the North American market. Ford and Sprint are teaming up to co-market and co-sell this solution, as the end-use customers will purchase

A uthor

increase adoption in these areas providing broadband speeds as well as the potential for comparatively lower cost of service. GPS / LBS (turn-by-turn navigation, real-time traffic updates, maps and weather), enhanced safety services (e911/AACN), Internet, Remote Diagnostics / Predictive Maintenance (service and warranty information), Consumer Entertainment & Services (wireless music / video, gaming, and personalised services) will all become more viable. This is done via wireless two-way communications, as well as adding tremendous value to end users who are demanding these types of services.

Furthermore, we are beginning to see a clear convergence between home and vehicle connectivity, utilising data speeds that are available to households today (broadband / DSL). There are a few challenges for automotives and OEM suppliers: • Which platforms in the near term are best suited for wireless connectivity so that they can launch product offerings that fit the needs of their customers?

• What networks should these product and services use to enable wireless connectivity?

• Is network speed the most important factor or bandwidth considerations?

This will largely be dependent upon what the application looks like.

Most global carriers have networks that can handle low and high data throughputs.

In the US, Sprint Nextel has been the leader in the automotive vertical utilising both its CDMA (1X, EVDO, and Rev A) and iDEN networks in delivering wireless two-way data communications using mobile devices (phones, Blackberrys) and fixed solutions working with industry leading partners who provide hardware and software solutions to the automotive / fleet market. Sprint has been in the forefront of delivering innovative solutions through mobile

the vehicles, which include the PC, directly from Ford, and will purchase the Internet Access (and later version additional internet-based services), directly from Sprint.

Conclusion

It is a very exciting time to be involved in the automotive market regarding mobile wireless data communications, whether you are an automotive manufacturer, supplier, mobile device company or wireless carrier. There is tremendous growth taking place with new products and services being developed. With the advent of faster networks being deployed (WiMAX), this growth should only accelerate as automotive manufacturers and suppliers fulfill consumers’ demand for internet, GPS / Navigation, telematics, infotainment and other in-vehicle services.

Ross Caplan is the Senior Partner Development Manager, M2M and Wireless Data, Sprint Nextel. He is responsible for developing Sprint’s (M2M) Machine-to-Machine ecosystem, partner marketing, business strategy, supporting Sprint direct channel sales, as well as driving market growth in several target markets. Ross holds MA in International Relations and Business from the University of Miami and a BS in Political Science from the University of Maryland, College Park.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

89

P rod u ction and man u fact u ring

EU CO2 Outlook Meeting the challenge

Driven by the looming CO2 emission standards, technological developments in the European Union are booming. A review of current CO2 proposals sheds some light on the future and also facilitates forecasting the future CO2 market situation and challenges.

90

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

The enormity of this challenge was nicely illustrated by former Ford product guru Richard Parry-Jones, who claimed that this challenge would be interesting, and we would learn a lot in the next ten years. His words are a reference to the multitude of proposed technological solutions, which in some cases will take years before we truly understand their impact. It also highlights that perhaps the European legislator could have been too optimistic with his demands, as any new technological solution in the automotive industry has a steep learning curve. It does make one thing apparent, the ‘real’ industry challenge will start in 2008�.

The proposed EU CO ��2 reduction strategy as presented during February 2007 generated a serious debate over its content. The European Commission

set out its intention to force through mandatory targets for average �� CO2 output of 120g/km by 2012. For the vehicle manufacturers though, the effective target is 130g/km due to the offset factor of the so-called ‘complementary measures,’ contributing to further cuts of up to 10g/km. Over the summer of 2007 the industry had put on a brave display of technological advancement, but continued its behind-the-scene lobbying. Consequently, it was not until December 2007 when the EU Parliament had issued a resolution broadly supporting the commission, but also recommending long-term tougher targets. The debate has flared up since then and we had to wait till May 2008 before further details were revealed regarding the mandatory �� CO2 framework regulation. Items currently still under

EU proposed limit value curve CO2 emission limit value [g/km]

T

he European automotive industry today faces an all-time high in environmental awareness, primarily due to an increased taxation link with vehicle CO2 emissions. However, several European vehicle manufacturers have now joined the environmental hype by means of cleverly orchestrated marketing campaigns to highlight care for the environment and technological advancements.

In fact, most of the European vehicle manufacturers currently offer a so-called ‘eco-label’ designating environmentally friendly variants of a particular vehicle range. This causes some confusion for the consumer as each vehicle manufacturer sets their own criteria for these eco-labels.

How did we get into this situation?

During the first quarter of 2007, the European automotive industry was rocked by regulatory demands from the European Commission regarding new vehicle CO ��2 emissions, with the threat of severe financial penalties for non-compliance. In fact, the originally proposed fines were the most severe ever encountered by any industry in Europe. Consequently, the European automotive industry started to act with increased awareness to face this challenge leaving many other issues unsolved.

The quest for reduced CO ��2 new vehicle emissions has opened up opportunities for a variety of new and, in some cases, unproven technologies that are currently being pursued.

Tom De Vleesschauwer Associate Director and Automotive Consulting Global Insight Limited UK

250

limit value curve

200 150 100 50 0

500

1000

1500 Vehicle mass[kg]

2000

2500

3000 Figure 1

P rod u ction and man u fact u ring

2006 EU OEM performance 300

Porsche

2006 trendline average mass

Average CO2[g/km]

250 Subaru

Mitsubishi GM

Nissan

150

BMW Daimler chrysler

Mazda

Suzuki Toyota

100

Volkswagen

50

1000

Ford PSA

Honda

Renault

1100

debate include the actual compliance date (the current view favours a staggered new fleet compliance over the period 2012 to 2015), continuing concerns surrounding the severe penalty system, and criticism regarding the Limit Value Curve (Figure 1).

As is often the case with regulatory decision processes, the decision delays and lack of clarity over the exact content puts even more pressure on the European vehicle manufacturers. One thing that is clear for now is that the EU, under its current French presidency, wants to make it a top priority to finalise and agree on the mandatory CO ��2 emissions framework by the end of 2008.

The current draft regulation proposes a ‘limit value curve’ of permitted emissions of CO ��2 for new vehicles according to the mass of the vehicle (Figure 1).

The curve is set in such a way that a fleet average for all new cars of 130g/km of CO2 is achieved.

The industry challenge becomes visual when we plot the manufacturers 2006 new fleet CO ��2 performance onto the proposed limit value curve (Figure 2).

The fact that the vehicle mass is taking centre stage with this proposed

1200

1300

1400 Average mass[kg]

regulation is causing concerns for several European vehicle manufacturers. One of the concerns is regarding the ‘slope’ of the curve, in other words “which vehicle manufacturers will bear the cost burden?” A steep slope of 80 per cent would favour heavy (large) cars, while a narrow slope of 30 per cent would favour lighter (smaller) cars. In a market where German vehicle manufacturers are renowned for big vehicles and French / Italian manufacturers dominate the small vehicle market, it is clear that political agreement is difficult to achieve. Yet another aspect that is worth mentioning here is the fate of the hybrid vehicle. The proposed limit-value curve

CNG

Market Forecast

Fiat

Hyundai

LPG

Gasonline

Flex-Fuel

Diesel

2007

1500

1600

1700

Figure 2

approach is clearly supporting hybrid vehicle technology, as it weighs about 200 kg on an average, more due to its battery technology. And with the curve allowing heavier vehicles to emit more CO2, the hybrid vehicle actually is more efficient.

In support of the previous discussion, a review of the overall challenge for the European market would be welcome. For this purpose, a �� CO2 forecast scenario has been developed by Global Insight for the European market. It illustrates that in 2007 the European industry stood at a combined new fleet average of 162 g/km, taking into account the passenger car production in all EU25 countries.

CNG LPG

Flex-Fuel

Gasonline

Diesel

2012

Figure 3

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

91

P rod u ction and man u fact u ring

92

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

and substituted its gasoline share with flex-fuel vehicles (of course a massive increase in Bio-Ethanol capacity will be required) then the market’s new fleet average would be reduced to 144g/km, admittingly still not enough. But if the EU could agree on sustainability standards and start flex-fuel measurements on a well-to-wheel basis, the total market would achieve 126g/km.

Conclusion

This goes to show that today the European automotive industry is truly challenged, and that even though the

A uthor

The fuel split indicates that in Europe, alternative fuels are not making any major impact currently, except for the diesel powered vehicles. The forecast indicates that by 2012, the market is heading for a respectable 19g/km decrease in CO ��2 emissions—given a more rapid adoption of �� CO2 ������ reduction technologies, and a 3 per cent rise in diesel market share (provided other alternative fuels continue to be of lesser importance). This would bring the overall new fleet figure to 143g/km.

So, the European market will struggle to meet the 2012 target, if it is to rely solely on technology-based improvement solutions. It illustrates the clear need for increasing consumer action regarding CO2 emission �������������������������������� reduction, and perhaps also it could be a wake-up call for the alternative fuel offerings.

The scenario indicates that if the European market embraced flex-fuel (ethanol solutions like E85) technology

‘exact’ rules of the �� CO2 emissions ��������������� game remain unclear, it becomes apparent that the future will be challenging. In summary, the severity and uncertainty surrounding the challenge does imply that there is no single-solution technology available. What is apparent is that the likely major contributors will be technology and consumers. So far technology has been the sole contributor to respectable CO ��2 �������������������� emission reduction, but it is the willingness of consumers to start embracing new products and technologies that will push the automotive industry towards compliance.

Tom De Vleesschauwer is the associate director of Automotive Consulting, Global Insight, AMD. For over 15 years Tom has been engaged in consulting and analytical assignments involving competitive, marketing, and business / product development issues in the automotive industry. He is certified by the Institute of the Motor Industry.

Tom is a pending member of the Society of Automotive Analysts, and was accepted into the prestigious US Who’s Who edition.

P rod u ction and man u fact u ring

Air Tank

The new hybrid battery The Scuderi Air-Hybrid could be the first hybrid system that makes economic sense as it increases power and mileage at a cost of only a few hundred dollars, as compared to an electric hybrid that costs thousands of dollars.

Salvatore Scuderi President The Scuderi Group, USA

to closely study the emergence of the Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine.

M

Overview

ost automakers are in a rush to find environmentally friendly alternatives to gasoline and diesel-fueled internal combustion engines before the plans for mandatory vehicle emissions standards go into effect.

Proposed legislation and consumers’ desire to slow the effects of global warming have led the automotive industry

While electric hybrids have limited engine efficiency and emission levels, the Scuderi Air-Hybrid has the potential to reach historical gains in vehicle mileage.

In addition to being significantly more efficient and reducing toxic emissions by up to 80 per cent, the Scuderi Engine maintains and, at times, even improves both power and performance. Today’s

electric hybrid vehicles reduce power and performance to obtain ������������������� increased mileage. ��������� Because the Scuderi Air-Hybrid increases power while improving mileage at a cost of only a few hundred US dollars as compared to thousands of dollars for an electric hybrid, it could be the first hybrid system that makes good economic sense to automotive OEMs. Currently under development, the Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine is backed by extensive research from a world renowned independent laboratory—Southwest

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

93

P rod u ction and man u fact u ring

Research Institute (SwRI), a nonprofit applied research and development organisation that specialises in the creation and transfer of technology in engineering and physical sciences.

Based on technology that costs only several hundred US dollars more than a standard internal combustion engine, the Scuderi Engine incorporates a split-cycle design that fires after top dead centre, producing highly efficient and cleanburning combustion with one cylinder and compressed air with the other. The compressed air is stored in a small air tank near the engine block that becomes an adjunct power source, boosting overall engine efficiency.

Adding a small air storage tank with some simple controls allows the Scuderi Engine to recapture energy normally lost during the braking of a vehicle. To accomplish the same results with an electric hybrid would require a complex electrical system costing thousands of dollars, consisting of generators, motors, and large batteries.

Unlike electric hybrids, the Scuderi Air-Hybrid is also able to recapture energy from the exhaust of the engine, making it possible to use its design in stationary applications such as electric generators—where using electric hybrids is considered impractical.

Intake and compression

The basic Scuderi Split-Cycle Engine divides the four strokes of a standard engine over a paired combination of one compression cylinder and one power (or expansion) cylinder. These two cylinders perform their respective functions once per crankshaft revolution. The compression cylinder then pressurises the charge and drives it through the crossover passage, which acts as the intake port for the power cylinder.

A check valve is used to prevent reverse flow from the crossover passage to the compression cylinder, and likewise a crossover valve prevents reverse flow from the power cylinder to the crossover passage. The check valve and crossover

94

Au t o F o c u s A s i A

ISSUE - 4

2008

valve are timed to maintain pressure in the crossover passage at or above firing conditions during an entire four-stroke cycle.

Power and exhaust

Combustion occurs soon after the intake charge enters the power cylinder from the crossover passage. This means that the start of combustion occurs after the power cylinder passes through its top dead centre position. The exhaust gases are then pumped out of the power cylinder through a poppet valve to start the cycle over again.

Previous split-cycle designs

There have been other similar split-cycle engine designs in the past, but they have never been able to match the thermal efficiency levels of the standard four-stroke engine. In earlier designs, gas was allowed to expand in the power cylinder as it was transferred from the crossover passage, meaning the gas had to be recompressed before initiating combustion.

The energy required to recompress the gas greatly reduced engine efficiency.

What is unique about the Scuderi Engine design is that it maintains pressure in the crossover passage at combustion pres-

Air-Hybrid Advantages Because the Scuderi Engine is similar to current engine technology, the retooling needed for implementation is minimal. In fact, implementing the Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine would only cost several hundred U.S. dollars more than the internal combustion engines found in today’s conventional gas and diesel vehicles.

The Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine is not just for automobiles and trucks; it can replace piston engines of any size. Airplanes, locomotives, boats, trucks, motorcycles and lawnmowers could all potentially implement and benefit from its use.

The Scuderi Engine is both simple and versatile. It can be easily adapted to the needs of specific applications. Many features that historically required additional equipment or complicated modifications are intrinsic to the design of the Air-Hybrid.

Fuel flexibility The Scuderi Engine has improved the heart of the engine where chemical energy is converted to mechanical energy that can be fuelled by gasoline, diesel, bio-diesel and natural gas.

Built-in supercharging Reduces cost, weight and size while maintaining power and performance.

Built-in miller effect Helps to increase efficiency by extracting more energy from the expanding gasses.

Offset cylinders Most engine friction losses are a result of piston rings pushing against cylinder side walls. Offsetting the cylinders in opposite directions from the centreline of the crankshaft reduces friction and provides a mechanical advantage on the crankshaft.

Built-in engine brake As the weight of the vehicle is used to pump high pressure air into the storage tank during regenerative braking, the force required to compress the air will also act as an engine brake—stopping the vehicle and reducing the use of conventional brakes.

Auxiliary air supply The Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine’s ability to produce compressed air is a feature that has tremendous implications for military and commercial use because compressed air can be used to run accessories such as air tools or camless valves. It also can be used to inflate tires or to help start the vehicle if the battery runs low.

P rod u ction and man u fact u ring

sures and fires after top dead centre, thus avoiding the problems that plagued earlier designs.

Most engine friction losses are a result of piston rings pushing against cylinder side walls. Offsetting the cylinders in opposite directions from the centreline of the crankshaft reduces friction and provides a mechanical advantage on the crankshaft.

Impact on diesel engines

Turbochargers

Built-in supercharging feature eliminates the need for turbocharging Injectors

Half the injectors are eliminated because the Scuderi Engine fires on only half its cylinders. Lower cost injectors can be used because of high turbulence created in the power cylinder by high pressure gas in the crossover passage.

Exhaust treatment system

The cost of the after treatment system is greatly reduced because the engine drastically reduces NOx produced by the combustion process.

Auxiliary air supply

Having an air supply is especially useful for larger trucks and vehicles. The air can be used for engine starting, air brakes and operating tools.

Built-in engine brake

Many large vehicles come equipped with engine brakes that slow the vehicle by forcing compressed air. Air braking with the Scuderi Engine saves wear and tear on the brakes and eliminates the need for additional equipment and controls.

Recent developments Bosch engineering partnership, March 2008

Bosch engineering is assisting with development of the Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine prototype. Specifically, Bosch is helping define technical requirements and component specifications.

Valve train test rig, April 2008

The crossover valve train sub-assembly is one of the most critical components of the Scuderi Engine. It also has long been one of the most scrutinised because it has to actuate above Formula 1 speeds.

In order to address these concerns, an independent laboratory was assigned the task of creating a valve train test rig to simulate every aspect of the engine’s environment, minus the heat of combustion.

The lab was able to fully actuate the crossover valves at all engine speeds, under all load conditions, and compare measured results to previously predicted performance data. Results from the valve train test rig exceed expectations and were a nearly perfect match to initial computer predictions of engine performance.

A uthor

Today’s diesel engines are sophisticated and expensive to produce. Diesel engine manufacturers too are facing some difficult challenges because of new global emissions standards. Incorporating the Scuderi Engine design will allow these manufacturers to easily exceed future emissions standards.

The Scuderi Air-Hybrid design can be applied to diesel trucks and equipment of all sizes at a very low cost. In fact, the Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine significantly lowers diesel engine production costs, while improving overall performance.

Three major components of the traditional diesel engine are eliminated or reduced with the Scuderi Engine.

Features that would normally require additional equipment are automatically incorporated in the design:

Global patent portfolio expansion, July 2008

Patent protection for five more aspects of Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine technology has been secured. This brings The Scuderi Group’s global patent portfolio to more than 62 pending and 35 issued in more than 50 countries. The everexpanding portfolio provides protection for Scuderi Group investors and will enable licensees to establish dominant market positions for the next 15-20 years.

The future

The first working prototype—a twocylinder, naturally aspirated gasoline engine—is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008.

The Scuderi Group is currently in licensing discussions with engine manufacturers in Europe, India, the United States and Asia, who are seeking an alterative to expensive, batterydependent electric hybrid systems. The engine’s design will also be exhibited in Nagoya, Japan in November’08 at the Eco-Clean Car Fair.

Salvatore Scuderi, President of the Scuderi Group, has over twenty years of experience in program management, financial forecasting and planning, mergers and acquisitions, contract negotiations, strategic planning and both manufacturing and engineering management. He has spent the last several years as a consultant for mergers and acquisitions, turnaround management, financial restructuring and business planning. Sal is the inventor of a patentpending dwell feature for the split-cycle engine.

w w w. a u t o f o c u s a s i a . c o m

95

Classifieds We manufacture precision metal parts for Automotive, Medical, Aerospace and Hydraulic industries. With more than 30 years experience in these lines we also offer high precision machine support. Our company has operations in Malaysia, Taiwan, and Mainland China. We can customize products as per your specific requirements.

Beeantah Industrial(M) Sdn. Bhd., 7, Jalan Bayu 2/2, Taman perindustrian Tampoi Jaya, 81200, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia Tel: +6072371848 Fax: +6072371850, Email: beeantah@tm.net.my ; sales@beeantah.com.my, Contact Person: Bryant Wu Website: www.beeantah.com.my.

TKH Manufacturing Sdn Bhd is into manufacturing and assembling automotive parts and products.

The company has a well knit supply chain catering to local car assemblers and coachbuilders of both domestic and overseas market. TKH is a subsidiary of Wawasan TKH Holdings Berhad (formerly known as Greatpac Holdings Berhad), which is listed on the Second Board of Bursa Malaysia.

No 33 Lorong Jala 14/KS10, Telok Gong, Pelebuhan Klang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, 42000 Malaysia. Ph: 00603 31341168 Fax: 00603 31343379 Email: bjs-auto@wawasantkh.com; www. wawasantkh.com

AutomotiveEvents October 2008

October 2-5 San Antonio International Auto and Truck Show Venue : 4414 Centerview Drive Suite 140, San Antonio, Texas 78228, US Organiser : San Antonio Automobile Dealers Association Web Link : www.saautodealers.com October 12-15 26th Annual Brake Colloquium & Exhibition Venue : Grand Hyatt Hotel, San Antonio, Texas, USA Organiser : SAE International Web Link : www.sae.org October 13-15 Devcon Developers Conference 2008 Venue : The Westin Gaslamp Quarter, 910 Broadway Circle San Diego, California 92101 · U S Organiser : Renesas Web Link : www.renesasdevcon.com October 20-22 Convergence® 2008 Venue : COBO Center, Detroit, Michigan, US Organiser : SAE International Web Link : www.sae.org

SuppliersGuide Company

November 2008 November 5-6 Asia Automotive: Innovative Transformation Venue : JW Marriott, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Organiser : Marcus Evans Web Link : www.marcusevans.com

December 2008 December 1-5 International CTI Symposium Innovative Automotive Transmissions Venue : Maritim Hotel Berlin, Stauffenbergstraße 26, 10785 Berlin, Germany Organiser : Car Training Institute Web Link : www.transmission-symposium.com December 2-4 International CTI Forum – Nox Reduction Venue : The Westin Southfield Detroit 1500 Town Center, Southfield (MI) 48075, USA Organiser : Car Training Institute Web Link : www.emission-control-systems.com

Products&Services Page No.

Cuscapi Communications www.cuscapi.com ETAS GmbH www.etas.com

OBC3

JEC Composites www.jeccomposites.com

19

Knibb, Gormezano & partners www.kgpauto.com

53

43

Company

Page No.

Management Robinson Logistics

IFC1

Knibb, Gormezano & partners

53

Information Technology

Robinson Logistics www.robinsonsindia.com

IFC1

Siemens AG www.siemens.com

IBC

Cuscapi Communications

OBC3

ETAS GmbH

43

Materials JEC Composites

2

19

Electrical and Electronics Siemens AG

IBC2

To receive more information on products & services advertised in this issue, please fill up the "Info Request Form" provided with the magazine and fax it, or fill it online at www.autofocusasia.com by clicking "Request Client Info"link.

1. IFC: Inside Front Cover 2. IBC: Inside Back Cover

3. OBC: Outside Back cover