New cab design

[kevwoogs]

Hypothetically – If a small team was to develop a truck Cab from scratch (med to high volumes).

What would be the main steps in the design program? As I am in the low volume industry I wouldn’t know.

I see it as this. Not quite necessarily in this order


Market research/benchmarking/establish a spec.

Basic concept renderings/models. Inside and out. Decide the look!

Create a overall basic surface model.

Package major components/Ergonomic analysis of crew.

Develop the Body in White.

Engineer design components/panels/cockpit etc.


Any feedback would be of help


Thanks - Kevin

 

[reidh]

Since so much work is outsourced, a requirements document would be in order so that the suppliers know what specifications they are trying to design to.

Analysis will also need to be done. This won't necessarily be done by the manufacturer of the truck, alot of analysis is done by the suppliers (analysis of a seat, steering column, etc. would likely be done by the supplier of the component).


You also need to have test each component, both individually and as an installed system. This corner is being cut more and more by many of the major auto manufacturers, which is why their quality hasn't kept up with the advances and improvements in manufacturing over the years.

Reidh

 

[GregLocock]

Trouble is that few tier one suppliers can be trusted to engineer from a systems perspective, so unless your OEM is an expert at partitioning then the OEM still ends up doing the bulk of the heavy lifting in analysis and testing. Also expect your carefully worked out spec to be ignored as you approach production - they'll say - oh we don't meet that requirement, what are you going to do about it?

There are /some/ capable Tier ones. But I don't know how to find them. The usual trick is when they are bidding for the business they'll send in senior VPs, and have a great project manager, and a bunch of senior engineers. Six months later the project manager will be a 27 year old, and the entire project staff will be contractors.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[Rob45]

The entire design and development of the first generation Dodge Dakota suv was outsourced - to the company that had learned SUV design by being the design contractor for the first generation Ford Explorer.
In case anyone was wondering why the Dakota was so much like the Explorer...

That company (Carron) however is no longer in business.

Purely from my NVH standpoint, I'd point out that there's a lot more to designing a cab than merely doing package and ergonomics studies. There's a lot of structure that, if gotten wrong, can create a noise and vibration nightmare.