SYSTEM REALIZATION FOR COLLABORATIVE VEHICLE WEIGHT TARGETING AND CASCADING

One of important characteristics of modern ground vehicles is the maneuverability. Excessive size and weight might result in an obstacle to impede the maneuverability of the ground vehicles. Weight should be consistently and efficiently propagated from top-level design specifications to the various subsystems and components. Furthermore, in a ground vehicle development environment, the weight targeting requires heterogeneous departments to interact with each other concurrently and collaboratively. In this paper, therefore, we propose a webbased system to support the ground vehicle weight targeting and cascading for ground vehicle engineers. The system enables weight efficiency calculation with formulae to determine weight and cost targets via competitive vehicle analyses in early product development stages. We implement the proposed system by employing the web technology, which allows collaborative information collection and sharing. With the newly introduced paradigm, the system takes into consideration the various stakeholders who need to access vehicle weight information. Via the suggested information system, vehicle weight information and efficiency metrics (or formulation) are integrated and managed for weight targeting and cascading practices, with associated information and metrics designed to be congruent with a corporation’s enterprise-wide decisions. For the purpose of the system’s validation, we implemented the system on a vehicle manufacturer’s network and discuss the test results, which were based on large-scale vehicle data. INTRODUCTION With faster and higher demands of new and variant products, companies are required to participate in global design chains and to collaborate with each other to gain competitive advantages. A wide range of system requirements affect the final product: design, environmental concerns and standards, dynamics, variability, comfort, safety, infotainment, cost effectiveness, etc. The demand for environment-friendly products and cost effectiveness is especially important, and the reduction of fuel consumption is considered as a solution (Leohold and Gottwaldt 2009). This dynamic development environment makes the innovation process more challenging. Even though system integrators and large suppliers are implementing more tailored product development systems to improve effectiveness, the truly innovative development system can only be accomplished by the integrated and efficient Proceedings of the 2011 Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium (GVSETS) System Realization For Collaborative Vehicle Weight Targeting And Cascading, Kim, K.-Y., et al. Page 2 of 7 operation of complex information embedded in the final design. Weight targeting and cascading is the term for consistently and efficiently propagating desirable, top level, weight-efficient design specifications to the appropriate specifications for the various subsystems and components (Kim et al. 2003). Its main purpose is to determine weight and cost targets via competitive vehicle analyses in early product development stages. Kumar et al. (2006) presents a hierarchical, multilevel optimization approach based on decision-based design and analytical target cascading, to integrate enterprise-level product planning with engineeringlevel product development. Analytical target cascading is adopted in the work of Michalek et al. (2005) to explore interrelationships and to formalize the process of coordination between marketing and engineering design problems. Mori et al. (2005) describes a process to cascade interior sound quality targets to noise and vibration control at the system level, and Cooper et al. (2006) demonstrates analytical target setting and cascading with a hybrid electric truck example. However, existing research does not address how the formulations and information associated to weight targeting and cascading are integrated. This paper discusses how a web-based information-driven approach can integrate information and formulation associated to the current vehicle weight targeting and cascading practices. Via the suggested information system, vehicle weight information and efficiency metrics (or formulation) are integrated and managed for weight targeting and cascading practices, with associated information and metrics designed to be congruent with a corporation’s enterprise-wide decisions. The proposed system is implemented using web scripting technology and tested with a cooperate database. LITERATURE REVIEWS The mechanical product industry is under tremendous pressure to create more variety to attract customers. In this inexplicable product development environment, global manufacturing companies outsource components and subsystems to suppliers around the globe. Thus, product structures are re-defined to increase flexibility and scalability, and to share more components among different products to achieve the large production volumes. Muffato and Roveda (2002) note that a modular architecture can allow the externalization of some phase of the production; products can thereby be flexibly produced and managed. In the global product development environment, collaboration is a vital question. Booch and Brown (2003) describe a Collaborative Development Environment (CDE), a virtual space wherein all project stakeholders, separated by time or distance, may negotiate, brainstorm, discuss, share knowledge, and work together to accomplish some task. Most often it means the virtual space to create an executable deliverable and its supporting artifacts. CDE is especially useful in a space where engineers work together to resolve a problem. Booch and Brown (2003) present the current features required for a fully functioning CDE and the conceptual three categories and how organizations work successfully with all the features in CDE. Similarly, Milne and Winograd (2003) provide a workspace concept for the collaborative environment. They discuss the research issues relating to design; how digital information enters a design workspace, and how affordances can be provided. To do so, it is necessary to address a variety of new technologies, as well as how to define a technology affordance. Among collaborative environment challenges, research emphasizes that customers and stakeholders should be involved from the conceptual design of product development, in terms of increased customer satisfaction. One example of this is customer involvement in personal mobile devices targeted for seniors (Eisma et al., 2004). Globalization has deeply affected what direction innovation takes (Thoenig and Verdier 2003) and where it takes place geographically (Roman et al. 2008). Thoenig and Verdier (2003) suggest that, since the market has gone global, increased competition and technological imitation (or leapfrogging) leads to firms biasing their innovations towards skilled labor technology. Parts or technologies that cannot be copyrighted are still somewhat difficult to imitate if the innovations are biased towards skilled labor rather than unskilled labor. Today’s innovation is mainly led by the multinational enterprises (Narula and Zanfei 2004). These enterprises pour billions of dollars into research and development every year. One automobile OEM alone invested U$6.8 billion and thus was on the top ten lists of global companies (Roman et al. 2008). Innovation and development clearly play a critical role. What sets the ground vehicle industry apart from other industries, however, is that it is operated by an oligopoly of industry giants. The cost of innovation is too high for smaller businesses—vehicle development takes over 30,000 engineering hours, has a 3-5 year project cycle, and costs billions of dollars in initial investment. Smaller businesses are unable to complete such challenging tasks since they cannot acquire sufficiently large amounts of capital (Leohold and Gottwaldt 2009). Thus, the ground vehicle industry enjoys huge investments in R&D that is very focused, unlike other industries in which small businesses may compete with each other but lack the focus on one particular technology. Proceedings of the 2011 Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium (GVSETS) System Realization For Collaborative Vehicle Weight Targeting And Cascading, Kim, K.-Y., et al. Page 3 of 7 In the area of consumer goods, corporate strategies strive to capture customers’ voices. Like any consumer products, the auto industry also tries to reflect customer demands in their products to ensure sales and customer satisfaction. With faster and higher demands of new and customized products, companies are required to participate in global design chains and collaborate with each other to gain competitive advantages (Fan et al., 2008). Leohold and Gottwaldt (2009) identify the wide range of customer demands that affects the final product, such as: demands on design change, environmental concerns and standards, dynamics, variability, comfort, safety, infotainment, and cost effectiveness. While global economical depression and fuel cost increases have affected customers’ buying decisions, environment-friendly products and cost effectiveness are very important requirements (Leohold and Gottwaldt 2009). The growing demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles to reduce energy consumption and air pollution is a challenge for the ground vehicle industry. A key factor in fuel consumption is the vehicle’s weight. There has been an increased effort by companies to meet their fuel consumption goals by reducing the weight of their vehicles. Since average vehicle weight is expected to increase and the ground vehicle industry will continue to market new models, weight reduction is particularly important. Safety features such as anti-block systems, and increasing safety body structure contribute to vehicle weight gain. Although, the vehicle companies have responded to this by improving design and power train efficiency, these incremental improv