Faster Development Cycles

FEV is continually assessing the processes that are involved in new product development to find optimization potential.  Opportunities for improvement can be found in every area of the cycle including concept layout, design, analysis, development testing, as well as vehicle integration and calibration. 

In a global marketplace, speed to market is often a defining factor in the success of a new product introduction.  The window of opportunity for a successful product launch is smaller than it has ever been as an increasing number of competitors jostle for position to be the market leaders.   Reducing the amount of time to design and develop a market-ready powertrain or vehicle is a complex process that must be addressed systematically.

The extensive use of electrical and electronic systems in powertrain and vehicle systems has provided significant focus on function development and calibration in the engine development process in addition to both mechanical and thermodynamic development.

This requires methods and work flows to assist, or even enable, the experimental tests that are necessary to optimize the parameters of the system.  In support of this goal, FEV supports its customers with:

• Efficient model-based tools through all calibration levels (e.g. DoE)
• Use of hardware and software-in-the-loop test rigs
• Standardized and automated test bench and vehicle tests
• Defined development processes supported by appropriate tools
• Offline-Tools for various calibration tasks

FEV engineers continually assess new techniques to reduce the number of design and analysis loops that are necessary, and find innovative new ways to reduce the number of physical prototypes that need to be produced.  FEV has created an integrated virtual product development process – FEV2DP that saves time and money by eliminating a large amount of hardware prototyping from the product development cycle.

Design of Experiments is heavily employed to reduce the required number of test iterations.  Design for Six Sigma is routinely used to ensure that the projects that FEV conducts for its customers result in high quality, robust designs that can be easily productionized at low cost.

FEV’s customers can be certain, as they prepare products for the next decade that partnering with FEV will greatly assist their efforts to quickly bring high quality, best-in-class products to the market at target prices that their customers will find attractive.

Contact FEV to discuss your challenges.  You will be surprised by the quality of the services that FEV provides and the seamless integration that can be achieved with your internal project teams.