SOLUTIONS

NICHE VEHICLE

A new automotive company was established to develop, produce, and market a product for the ultra-luxury niche vehicle market. This vehicle, intended to compete with Ferrari, Bentley and other high-end vehicles, would be developed with the technologically advanced tools of virtual integration and predictive non-iterative engineering. The primary objective of the product development plan was to be fast-to-market while assuring the highest levels of customer satisfaction.

To address this unique set of challenges, the company needed a full-service engineering supplier armed with the most advanced design and development tools to manage development and vehicle integration. They chose Roush.

Roush began with a the styling theme concept model and conducted a 16 week study to define the product description, sourcing for the primary systems, the up-front product description, the up-front product development costs and the material costs for the whole vehicle. The study content/deliverables were:

• Mechanical and People Package/Package Buck
• Exterior Model Prove-Out/Exterior CAD Surface
• Interior Design Theme/Interior Model
• ADAMS Modeling/Suspension Geometry
• Vehicle Architecture/Assembly Plan
• FEA and CAE Macro Analysis/Structural Integrity

Roush met all targeted deliverables. Their preliminary engineering analysis gave the OEM confidence that all vehicle performance objectives could be achieved following vehicle prove-out of low speed damageability, crash worthiness, durability, dynamics, etc. Roush provided the OEM a critical tool for assessing development plans and determining that the final production design could be built for an amount equal to or less than the costs contained in their original business plan.