CONCURRENT ENGINEERING IN THE 'AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN FACTORY' CONCEPT - NUTS

摘要

This paper describes the 'Automotive design factory' concept, also called NUTS, and how the concept is interrelated with concurrent engineering. The paper is speculative since the NUTS-concept has not been tested or applied to real life situations. The vision of NUTS is to become an internationally leading competence center for light metal-based automotive product and process development. The competence center will integrate research, education and learning, and international network. Design and production will focus on lean, high volume manufacturing of light metal products. Design and Production will be organized as an "automotive design factory" called NUTS. The "factory" will act as an automotive research center organized around case products. These products will be designed, modelled, and prototypes manufactured.