Computers take a byte out of the car design process

Robyn Meredith

Thursday, Oct. 30, 1997 | 10:46 a.m.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Slam the hood. Slam the hood. Slam the hood. Silently.

Sitting before a glowing screen hooked to a basement full of Cray supercomputers, a Chrysler engineer designing the new Concorde sedan ran dozens of simulations of that simple act. He was trying to create a car hood that would fit to a hair's breadth -- and stay that way.

It is not the kind of detail that jumps off a showroom floor. But it is an example of how the world's largest manufacturing industry is being transformed, part by part, by what is now known as paperless engineering.

Chrysler Corp.'s two newest sedans, the 1998 Dodge Intrepid and the Chrysler Concorde, which arrive in showrooms this fall, share the distinction of being the first fully digital cars -- that is, designed and engineered entirely on computer. Competitors are only a mouse-click behind. Soon, the auto industry will be pumping out digital cars and trucks by the millions.

Experts in and outside Detroit say digital vehicles herald a new era in manufacturing, in which better cars can be designed faster and cheaper.

"You're taking knowledge that traditionally has been embedded in mechanical things and making it much more easily transferable," said Marco Iansiti, an associate professor of technology at Harvard Business School. "The paperless cars are an example of a trend that I think is bigger than steamships."

Thomas C. Gale used to be one of Chrysler's most innovative designers, but is now the executive vice president for product development. Gale said the higher standards established by computers mean that everything is so much more exacting. He added that sometimes in the past "we'd get the parts back, and we didn't even recognize them."

The essential shapes and styles of cars are still born on sketchbooks or in watercolors. But at Chrysler, the cars now gestate in mathematical equations spooled out by computers at the Chrysler Technology Center in the company's headquarters in Auburn Hills, a Detroit suburb.

Chrysler said the faster design processes shaved eight months off the development of the Intrepid and Concorde, saving the company about $80 million.

Ford and General Motors, along with Toyota, Honda, BMW and other large automakers, already sketch designs for new cars and trucks on computer. Many also use computers to design stamping machines, presses and other large pieces of factory equipment. The largest companies are now requiring suppliers to link their computers with the car manufacturers' to design auto parts that fit precisely and allow the performance of the entire car to be accurately simulated.

Ford used extensive computer-assisted design and engineering programs to build a small car called the Puma, which went on sale in Europe in July. But, unlike Chrysler's new cars, the Puma used many components developed for other Ford models that were not engineered on screen.

Ford is far along in developing computer models that measure the effects of auto crashes, which the company hopes will replace many costly government-required crash tests. The company now spends between $350,000 and $550,000 to crash a hand-built prototype. But it costs about $200 to run a computer-simulated crash test, a tab expected to drop to $10 in three years.

General Motors Corp. won't have a digital car until the turn of the century. But it will soon use computers so that designers in say, Detroit and Tokyo, can hand off work for round-the-clock development of the same car.

Not everyone is sold on computers, however. "The computer isn't necessarily always the best way," said Jerry P. Hirshberg, the president of Nissan Design International, the American design arm of Nissan. "Not quite as much is possible on a computer as is possible in your mind." Hirshberg worries that computerized design will result in too many cars that are wonderfully efficient but boring.

"I fear the downside of the computer as a creative crutch, rather than a really helpful pencil with a good memory," he said. But he added that the best designers would continue to find inspiration off-screen -- with chalk and clay and metal and balsa wood.

But even Hirshberg admits that computers have their place. "I'm designing cars halfway around the world," he said. "The computer makes that all possible at the speed of light."