R&D needs
Future material developments and manufacturing processes are essential key factors of vehicle technology innovation. New materials and new processing technologies serve as basis of increased competitiveness by increasing the perceived value of the vehicle while maintaining or reducing cost and investment.
Adequate manufacturing systems including new forming, joining, assembly, surface protecting and painting processes are necessary. Progressive R&D allows to profitably use new materials coming from basic and industrial research and to overcome technical constraints and economic boundaries.
The automotive industry will focus its R&D activities not only on technical solutions to specific challenges of vehicle development but also address production processes to achieve improvements and efficiency from the extraction of fuel and raw materials to production of vehicles in an efficient and environmentally friendly way at affordable prices.
The automotive industry intends to meet these challenges by research and development in the fields of:
Virtual tools for improved product and manufacturing engineering
- Virtual tools and methods as well as application of virtual manufacturing engineering to improve time to market, supplier integration and distributed engineering footprint.
Suitable materials
- Optimal utilisation of raw materials and their re-use at the end of life,
- Exploration and use of sustainable alternative materials to replace depleted and costly existing ones,
- Development and integration of adaptive material systems into vehicle structures for intelligent optimisation of vehicle comfort and performance,
- Development of advanced high performance, multifunctional materials and surfaces and improvement of enabling technologies to innovate the design of all main vehicle modules and key parameters, and
- Performance improvements of components and systems with reduced weight and power consumption and higher efficiency, enabled by intelligent materials with emphasis on the integration of nanostructures and nanotechnologies into macro-systems.
Ecological, resource-efficient, flexible manufacturing and optimisation of production processes for mass production of affordable products
- Next generation manufacturing processes and architecture concepts, including ICT manufacturing,
- Extended manufacturing enterprise concept including demand monitoring and connected logistics systems,
- Flexible manufacturing processes for combined low and high volume production,
- Possible change of vehicle platform within the same production line,
- Improved design and production principles and processes through an integrated design approach to fulfil the needs related to new vehicle systems,
- Advanced and adaptive manufacturing processes and strategies covering all aspects of product and process lifecycle, integrated with flexible and complex production systems for multifunctional and high performance materials at competitive costs and high quality level, and
- Improved implementation of research results in cost-efficient large-scale production processes to achieve a favourable time-to-market.
Virtual tools for the optimisation of energy expenditure
- Energy optimisation tools for the overall vehicle life cycle, from raw material extraction to the final product recycling. The automobile manufacturers intend to improve the energy-efficiency of all phases of vehicle production.
Graphic: Planning for the future in 3D with virtual manufacturing.
