I was lucky enough to walk through several complete positive development processes and try to outline the whole process. My entry point may be slightly different, because it's not just about what is important, but how fast you can be. Question one: How long does it take to develop a car? Before delving into the development process of automotive products, I must first talk about how long it takes for a process to think about how the car will be staged on the conference. According to the general progress of car development, this time is less than 5 years. This notion is not what you think of your first product if you build a car company from scratch; instead, it is in a functioning car company, in a normal operating development sequence, as a product of a car. After the end of the life cycle, his next generation of new products can normally replace the start of such a normal cycle. If it is a minor change in a product's product life cycle, such as changing the shape of the front-end/back-end, changing some interior trims, and updating the entertainment information equipment, the development cycle is about a little more than three years. . Question 2. What did you spend in such a long time? Compared to IT electronics products, this 3 to 5 year development time can be very long. Maybe you have doubts, if a brand new car takes 5 years from planning to market, with the speed of change in today's era, who can predict what the customer demand will be after 5 years and what the whole market is in. Yes, no one can predict things after 5 years, but the speed of change in the automotive industry is still far below the speed of the IT industry. Basically, it is a change of 10 years or even longer as the unit of time, so the starting point of work is basically Do not deviate from the direction of the entire industry too far and lead to the final failure. If we subdivide this five-year period into several relatively independent blocks, I think we should divide it into: planning and infrastructure development, product development, product verification, and product manufacturing. There are overlaps in time and there are interactions in the work content, which together form the entire automotive product development process. 1. Product planning and infrastructure development. The work of planning is very important. It is necessary to ensure that each business chain in a large company can complete its own work and let the new car open the production line after 5 years. To coordinate the various business departments, the most important ones include the market. Finance, R&D and manufacturing. The demands of these departments are often in conflict with each other. How to balance these different needs is often the most difficult, and the ultimate decision maker is the director of the vehicle and decides the role of all of them. The Marketing Department can be said to be the origin of all needs. For a new model, there are many elements to define clearly, including: Product Positioning Target customers Reasons for customer purchase Product selling point Target Market (China, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa, South America, European Union, North America...) Product price range and estimated sales Competitive models Product configuration Based on the definition of these market requirements, the R&D and manufacturing departments will put forward their own requirements and restrictions accordingly. For the R&D department, the most fundamental question is to answer a question, whether the car that the market wants can be designed. There are too many things to consider when subdividing. Try to list it here, including: Target market compliance (including emissions regulations, safety regulations, left and right driving, etc.); Does the configuration table contain new technologies and can these new technologies be implemented? Engine and gearbox combination solutions; Change levels and sharing schemes for major subsystems; Vehicle size and scale; It is expected that the entire vehicle performance level, especially whether the selling point can be achieved; Estimated development costs and material costs. For the entire vehicle company, because manufacturing is an important part of the business chain, it is more prudent. In the planning stage, it is necessary to consider whether the existing production capacity can meet the needs of new cars in the future. If so, then in which/many factories to arrange production, if not, where to invest in new plants. Correspondingly, what is the manufacturing investment for various programs? In addition, whether the existing plant's production line can support the manufacturing of new models and whether it needs to be remodeled is also an early consideration. These different scenarios bring about the difference of N billion investments. To ask the boss what is most concerned about, these are not whether to make money, how much money is important. The marketing department proposes an ideal price range. The R&D department calculates the material cost of the entire vehicle, the manufacturing department calculates how much investment and the apportioned manufacturing costs, and other related business departments will also propose their own budget. Ultimately, the finances use their own filtering and corrections to calculate how much money this vehicle can make and how much it can earn over its entire life cycle. This also determines whether this model can pass the audit of the highest executive agency and proceed to the next step in development. For the conflict between the market and R&D, it takes a considerable period of careful work to reach a balance. In the early stages of automotive product development, these tasks were mainly undertaken by the R&D department, which was also called infrastructure development. The entire product R&D process can be divided into two parts: the development of the previous infrastructure and the later product development. The difference between the two parts can be viewed from multiple perspectives. For example, after the time comes, for example, the parts developed by the architecture development are not related to the vehicle modelling. I think there is an important difference. The development cost in the architecture development phase is much less than that in the product development phase. This means trial and error. The cost is low. In the early days, not much money, if it proves to be a way to go, then the additional large investment will be more secure. Otherwise, it will close early and move on to the next project. There are several prerequisites for supporting low-cost pre-architecture development: 1. As a basis for the mature architecture of several previous generation models, the verification of the architectural performance can be retrofitted with a certain predecessor model. The cost is not high. 2. A large number of means of virtual analysis are used to increase the speed of research and development and reduce the need for validation of real vehicles. Another feature of infrastructure development is that the object of development is not only the parts or subsystems used on a single vehicle. It is an architecture that may be used to carry multiple models in the future. The development strategy should be consistent as far as possible. Can share as much as possible on multiple models of this architecture. A successful infrastructure should be a combination of lower costs, suitable performance, and potentially high adaptability. This part of the work needs to be completed in the first year of the five-year development cycle. 2. Product development. The successful development of the infrastructure means that a project foundation that satisfies the market demand and the company's profit goal has been laid, and the development of a vehicle model is behind it. The starting mark of product development should be the formal development of the modeling work inside and outside the vehicle. Although in the infrastructure stage, modeling has begun to explore the basic vehicle proportion, and with the total layout engineers to explore the feasibility of the proportion of the project, but the stylist's work focus is a sketch and some small scale model. After entering the product development stage, the modeling department will develop multiple modeling programs at the same time and in accordance with a certain rhythm, and complete the production of large-size models. The company’s leadership will periodically review the models of these vehicles. Eliminate unsuitable styling solutions, select a final topic after several rounds of review, and enter the process of designing the components. The purpose of this process is to allow more creativity to be demonstrated and to allow R&D staff time to seriously study the feasibility of these ideas. The two parties will continue to run in and move closer to each other in an intermediate and viable state. The duration of the product development phase is much longer than it was before, accounting for about 22 months out of 5 years. The new engineer always doubts why the time to design a product does not need to be nearly two years. Get the styling to achieve the function of the internal structure. It can be completed within a month or two, and the remaining 20 months will be spent. What? Modeling is a process of phase-out, from the initial proportions, various topics, slowly meeting and colliding and eliminating, eventually winning a theme, the theme of winning must go through continuous fine carving, this process is a continuous iterative The process, that is, the same thing is repeated several times, but it is not a simple repetition. It is a process in which new ideas, new markets, R&D, and manufacturing inputs come in. An iteration is a challenge to the previous job, and even a subversion. In an iterative process, we are also called a learning cycle. In these 20 months, this cycle will have 4 to 5 times. Different parts in this iterative work according to their own characteristics, the completion of the development time is different, this is mainly to match the time of the parts verification work, but also to gradually reduce the system development variables, if we understand the development work as cover In the building, there are some parts that are equivalent to the foundation, some are equivalent to the first floor, and some are roofs. If you cover the first floor, the foundation is still not finished or changed in the wrong place. The upper floor is even a white cover. As mentioned earlier, it is difficult for planners to predict the market five years in advance, and the nearly three years from the development of the architecture to the development of the product gave the entire team the opportunity to adjust course, and of course, as time went on, The scope of adjustment is getting narrower and narrower, until the product design is completed and released for manufacturing, and the product is basically stereotyped. 3. Product verification. I think that the automotive product is a well-deserved first place in terms of complexity and reliability in comparison with other mass consumer products. To know that the number of people who are injured or killed every year in the world due to traffic accidents has always been the highest among all kinds of injury factors. Although there are many reasons for this, many of them are subjective reasons, not really the reason for the design of automobiles. However, automobiles, as the most commonly used vehicles, are always difficult to get rid of, which also leads to quality and The pursuit of reliability is exceptionally strict. Product verification is the most expensive part of product development. The technology of virtual analysis has greatly improved over the years. Many experiments have been replaced by virtual analysis. However, during the development of a car, hundreds of real cars are manufactured. It is indispensable to carry out various experiments. During the entire R&D process, there are probably three rounds of integrated verification work at the vehicle level. The rest of the component and subsystem level verifications also comply with these three rounds, but additional rounds or rounds of additional tests are normal. The three-wheel vehicle-level verification corresponds to three levels of verification of infrastructure components, preliminary design concepts, and final design products. Before the start of each verification phase, some prototypes will be manufactured with parts that have been verified by themselves, and then the verification test specifications of the entire vehicle will be run. The content of the tests will be different in each round, and the problems found will be different. These problems are different. After being solved, it will be tested in the next round of verification. There are many items for product verification, including tests under various working conditions. The high temperature conditions are in Turpan, the extreme cold conditions are in Heihe, the high humidity conditions are in Hainan, and the Tiannan Haibei must be taken care of. There are also roads, asphalt roads, concrete roads, gravel roads, mud roads, uphills, downhills, and even bad roads that are overrun by heavy vehicles around the world. Different customers have different targeted tests for the differences in the use habits of cars. Nowadays, various complicated functions are integrated in the vehicle. The testing of these new functions increases the workload of verification. According to the big categories, the verified items are divided into the following categories: Engine calibration; Gearbox calibration; Chassis system and control development; Active and passive safety experiments; Vibration, noise, thermal testing Electronic architecture, functional verification Vehicle durability test; Emission durability test; Vehicle functional durability test; Although the stage of product verification is an important part of the separate development of vehicle development, as described above, he is interspersed with other workplaces, except that there is a centralized testing stage after the completion of product design release. There has been some validation work before extending to the infrastructure development phase. It can be said that testing and verification work will be arranged for nearly four years out of the entire five-year period. 4. Product manufacturing. The trend of manufacturing outsourcing in the IT industry seems to have not been discovered in the automotive industry. Major depots still regard manufacturing as their core competitiveness. Although the configuration of the manufacturing part of the automobile factory is the same, from the stamping to the welding equipment to the painting to the final assembly, the four major processes go down one vehicle and go offline. However, in each of the following categories of craftsmanship, the difference in practice can be large. So you can't make a Volkswagen depot to produce Toyota cars, and vice versa. After a process is applied in a vehicle factory, it will be promoted to various manufacturing bases and solidified with large-scale investment to improve the compatibility and reliability of manufacturing. At the same time, this process flow will in turn determine the development of products. Characteristics, the two are intertwined. The manufacturing department will participate in the project in the early stages of product development, but the actual start of large-scale investment must wait until the product development to a certain stage, after a rigorous review, the tender will be issued to the contractor, the contractor also Formally based on products that have been developed to a certain stage to give quotations, the main investment for the press shop is stamping dies, because some of the large body parts are made in the press shop, although the press is ready-made, but the mold needs Manufactured by suppliers, this is a major investment project. Welding shop investment is higher, unlike the press can be reused for each project, each car body parts are basically the same, only the venue can be reused. Fixtures that include fixed parts, welders that weld, and robots that move parts all require new investments. Planning sites alone, the investment in welding equipment is greatest relative to other plants. The one-time investment in the paint shop is large, but the recycling rate is high. All cars are on the same line, and the tasks to be completed are also relatively uniform. The assembly line is also similar, where the wheels are put together and the wheels are united and refueled at the refueling point. The different parts of each model can be achieved by adjusting the assembly sequence of some parts. The unique investment of individual models is not large. The most time-consuming task in manufacturing is the manufacture of tooling equipment and the development of molds. For example, the largest part of the vehicle, the side panels, and the mold design and production commissioning time will add up to nearly one year. This year's time becomes the shortest key between the two stages of connection design and trial production. path. The most busy time of the manufacturing department is the last year of five years. When all the contractors have completed the production of molds, tooling, and start-up commissioning, the manufacturing department needs to check the entire process and supervise the installation and commissioning. When the plant equipment is installed, the entire vehicle parts that can be loaded are also prepared by the supplier. The trial production phase of the final year began. Trial production will also be carried out in several rounds. The entire process will be carried out in the factory's workshop. Careful confirmation must be given to the entire manufacturing process, production speed, operator training, logistics, and the performance and quality of the vehicles produced in the official production line. No accidents, one year before and after the time will find and solve thousands of problems. Including various process defects, design defects, suppliers' parts quality problems and so on. At the same time, vehicle quality inspectors will thoroughly examine the criteria of the most demanding customers for hundreds of trial production vehicles off the assembly line. This batch is far more than the verification amount in the previous development stage. Some probabilistic defects will be exposed at this time. come out. The last year’s busyness is to ensure that the long-term production process is as smooth and orderly as possible after the official start-up and delivery of customers, and to reduce the probability of failure occurring in the hands of customers. summary After introducing the various stages of automotive R&D, we can see that each stage is actually closely intertwined with each other. It cannot be overemphasized that after so many years of industry development, these things will continue to be done, and one thing will be indispensable. However, after continuous optimization, various methods that can shorten the time have been integrated into the process, so that the previously clearer phases of the work phase gradually blurred, more and more work is arranged in parallel, the time of the decision is Keep moving forward. The ultimate direction of our efforts should be to spend almost the same time as developing a mobile phone. Economiser Fire,Economizer Hvac,Carrier Economizer,Economizer Heat Exchanger Jinan Boiler Group Co., Ltd. , https://www.jinanboilergroup.com