New approach for architecture design of high variable vehicle portfolios

Following the trends of mass customization, globalization and environmental protection, new customer and legal requirements must be fulfilled in vehicle product development. The drivers named above often result in an increasingly complex product portfolio regarding the variance of components and mounting positions. Passenger cars and commercial vehicles are most affected by this, offering individualization in large quantity. As a result, the Vehicle Concept Development Process (VCDP) is becoming inscrutable and inefficient, since common methods are not entirely adapted to the huge variety of requirements and therefore components. This paper introduces a new approach to the Vehicle Architecture Design phase of passenger cars and commercial vehicles. The current package process can be divided in three phases. Within the phase of the Vehicle Dimension Design (VDD), exterior dimensions and passengers' positions are defined. During the Vehicle Architecture Design (VAD), the drivetrain- and vehicle architecture is developed. Followed by the Vehicle Package Design (VPD), all components, including hoses and wires, are integrated into the vehicle. In a first step, the proposed approach integrates a combination of requirement and dependency management into the architecture design. It is necessary to get a transparent overview of the requirements and their dependencies at an early stage of concept development. To manage the variance of components and their mounting positions, all components to be considered during VAD must be distinguished and prioritized by their impact on the concept and the variance within the second step of the method. Their significance is assessed according to suitable criteria. Based on this selection, only a certain number of components is considered during the architecture design. Components not matching the criteria are shifted for integration during the package design. During the third step, creation of manageable architecture alternatives is assisted by the reduced number of components. Afterwards the concept alternatives are evaluated based on the level of similarities and standardization. Consequently, the transparency and efficiency is increased by the three steps of the new method for VAD.