Near enough doesn’t mean good enough. It can mean creating a time bomb.
In the quest to reduce costs, some carmakers have stated publicly they’re pushing to reduce their new-car development cycles from a typical 55-60 months to around 30-36 months.
It makes sense given the intense competition currently facing all carmakers.
But a reduction of this magnitude is B-I-G. Creating a new model of car is a major undertaking, whether it’s to be a ground-up development or a major change to an existing vehicle platform.
Much of the time it takes is used up in development and testing.
Most carmakers would run through a blazing building if it meant shaving millions off a car’s development costs. But the problem is you can create a different type of blaze by scraping schedules and budgets to their bones.
Rushing engineering programs, shortening testing cycles, relying on computer-aided tools, eliminating prototype builds, and by-passing certain types of in-field testing can cause future faults to be created and overlooked.
Sending these faults down an assembly line can, at best, give rise to a quality spill. At worst, it can create danger for road users.
A non-safety quality spill might need a quiet service campaign by the carmaker, a program where owners are contacted and asked to return their cars to their brand’s nearest dealership to have a problem rectified. These often cost many millions of dollars.
At the other end of the spectrum you can wind up with a global product safety recall for a complex item that requires extensive rectification. This can shift a carmaker’s share price, cause its company directors to be hauled in front of government enquiries, and worst of all, cause harm to people.
It can also cause immense damage to a carmaker’s brand.
I don’t mean to be alarmist. This topic is all about considering the potential costs that come with compressing new-car development schedules and relying on digital tools without proper bench testing and real-world field testing.
Much faster development times can make a finance spreadsheet look great now, but a disaster in a few years’ time.
Over the long run, the best approach is to take the necessary time in car development. Do it efficiently, but properly and thoroughly. And don’t have your customers do ‘beta testing’ for you; Customer beta testing is just trendy-speak for ‘corner-cutting’.
Using new-car development time wisely is critical when creating products that can safely survive decades of use.
Always remember that time has a habit of revealing the truth. Because what ‘might’ have seemed OK at the beginning of a new-car program can often create once-avoidable future problems that are now just waiting to happen.
Bernie Quinn, CEO of Premcar
About Premcar:
Premcar Pty Ltd is a leading Australian vehicle engineering business that specialises in the automotive, defence and aerospace industries. For more than 25 years, global car-makers have made Premcar their go-to partner for the complete design, engineering and manufacture of niche-model new cars, full-scale new-vehicle development programs, and electric vehicle (EV) conversions and manufacturing. Premcar’s body of work is extensive. It is the name behind more than 200,000 new cars and 55,000 new-vehicle engines. The company has delivered technical advancements and sales success for major car brands from Europe, the USA, Japan, China and Australia. Visit premcar.au.