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Efficient Development
Function
If the aircraft construction remains one of the important forerunners for changes in the development of motor cars, these most modern methods will be soon also be standard procedure in the car industry. If the car
manufacturers tried hard in the past, to have their suppliers in the near vicinity, it will soon no longer be that important, at least not for the development side of things.
How it works
For some time now, the car manufacturers have been collecting as much data as possible from the actual driving area, e.g., through crash tests. One further advantage in this case, seems that there are a number of
companies, some close to universities, who can collect data, more or less independent of the manufacturer. It is obvious that thus, a lot of testing time is saved. What is new now, is that practically all the
experience flows into the development of a prototype. Then, basically, no prototype and no pre-production would any longer be necessary because basically, the very first finished car could already be sold (after the type
approval/roadworthy certificate has been issued). There would be no need for further improvements because everything had been tested earlier in the simulation.
The following course of action for a vehicle which is newly to be planned, is possible. The technical specifications are stored in a data base, together with the the solutions emerging in the process, to which all the
developers in the plant and also the suppliers have access to. The access could possibly be graded for reasons of secrecy. Each person works on his/her partial solutions and there is constant checking to make sure that
everything fits together. In addition, it is also constantly checked to see what has caused difficulties up to now, in the manufacturing or afterwards in the testing. Ideally, it should no longer be necessary to extensively
dismantle other parts, to reach the part that you actually want to work on. Basically, one not only knows what the new car looks like, but also how it can be built and repaired. There could be, additionally, a long term test and
even the scrapping could be simulated. The thoughts are, that the first vehicle can be produced and driven without problems. The expenses of regiments of testers and improvers could be saved. The development periods
would shrink even more than they already have. 11/09
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