Real-time Location at Your Service
Using software to define virtual work zones around an assembly moving down production creates variability in an otherwise fixed operation. Such zones free tools and operators from fixed work areas. Ubisense Smart Factory tracks these zones to ensure that the right tools operate correctly on the right vehicles. Ubisense Smart Factory at the Daimler plant […]
Rapid Prototyping: How It’s Done at GM
GM’s rapid prototyping lab features 18 machines from 3D Systems that are used to attentively build about 20,000 unique parts per year. On the campus of the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, is a 9,000 ft² laboratory where they’re building a wide variety of prototypes—from bumpers to spoilers and almost everything in between—with […]
Prime Number: 25
Koji Toyoshima, Prius Prime chief engineer. He is also the chief engineer for the 2016 Prius Liftback. Toyoshima says he’s been working on Prius models for five years. He’s been a Prius owner for 10. What did he benchmark for the Prime? He says that he looked at things like the Mazda3 and the Ford […]
PLM & Lean Product Development
“Lean†is a strategy. It is essentially about reducing waste wherever it occurs in the organization. Excess inventory. Unnecessary effort by people or machines. Duplicated data. Out! —along with the costs associated with those wastes. Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a concept. It is essentially about managing product data from the womb (product development) to […]
Need Help Selecting Materials?
Selecting materials requires data. Material properties can be found in books, journals, online databases, and directly from colleagues, consultants, and material suppliers. Unfortunately, these methods are often time-consuming, don’t necessarily lead to the best materials, and new materials frequently get short shrift. Also, data about a material can be slanted. Material suppliers often present best-case […]
Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America’s Approach to Building Trust in Autonomy
Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America believes that providing information about what an automated driving system is “seeing†can make the occupants feel more confident while being transported. In this setup, there are three screens: a vertically oriented 10.2-inch screen in the center and two horizontal 12.3-inch screens, one in front of the driver and one for […]
Metal Injection Molding Explained
For high-volume, high-precision needs of many automotive applications, metal injection molding (MIM) is a growing, though largely overlooked, process that could result in significant cost savings. Industry statistics state the overall process has grown from $9-million in 1986 (the original patents were awarded in 1980) to $382-million in 2004 to more than $1.5-billion in 2015. […]
Mercedes GLK250 BlueTEC 4MATIC: Bringing Diesel Tech to a Midsize SUV
In recent times, in the U.S., Mercedes has offered a variety of diesels. Starting in model year 2007, it began offering a V6 diesel (replacing the in-line configuration that it had long had on offer) with common-rail direct injection (CDI). This CDI engine was the first ULEV diesel; the 215-hp, 398 lb-ft diesel was available […]
Maserati’s Vision
The 2017 Maserati Levante S is equipped with an electronic vision system from Magna. It is worth noting that in addition to the camera-based driver assistance system, Magna also supplies Maserati with an all-wheel drive system, the Actimax all-wheel transfer case, which features an electronically controlled multi-disc clutch that provides variable drive torque distribution between […]
Making the Analysis of Requirements Documents Easier
After given a few examples of how requirements are identified, QVscribe will autofind requirements throughout a document. Requirements can also be marked manually. After all the requirements are marked for analysis, QVscribe can begin. The result (right pane) is a score—from one to five stars—for each requirement. Clicking on a requirement’s score highlights (left pane) […]
