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Efforts to enhance the productivity, to be in accordance with environmental regulations, to assure performance, quality and reliability in competitive market, are the major trends to any company of the industrial sector. This is particularly critical in the automotive market due to safety requirements and product conformity, but it is not enough to ensure success. The key to accomplish that is presented in this work through an investigation of innovation plans and technological strategy developed and applied to an electrical electronic architecture company. The results show the role of this approach prioritizing the corporative investment and goals, increasing profits by adding value to sale, analyzing collaboration between private companies and universities, revealing opportunities to apply for Government Innovation Program financial support. All these factors have been applied to the modernization of electrical automotive architecture for Brazilian emergent market.

Reduce the overall cost of the vehicle and at the same time introduce innovative features to meet the growing costumer demand is one of the challenges noticed on most automotive companies. Due to the falling price of electronics, multimedia and audio features are becoming popular even on A and B entry vehicles. The introduction of multiplex techniques to reduce wiring content is becoming unavoidable and automotive standards like Local Interconnect Network (LIN) and Controller Area Network (CAN) will eventually be introduced on emerging market vehicles. Besides the cost reduction factor, electromagnetic interference (EMI) constraints rises and must be considered during the design of the electrical / electronic architecture (EEA). One of the most common failure mode observed on network systems regarding EMI is the effect known as crosstalk. The crosstalk phenomenon is the undesirable coupling of energy of one line to another, and causes degradation on the data network.

The next generation of satellite system developed by the European Union and the European Space Agency, GALILEO, is schedule to be fully implemented by 2010. The system is being projected to operate at 1.17645 GHz (L5 frequency) for civilian purposes as an alternative of the currently North American system, and will be used as a safety signal on Ground Positioning Systems (GPS) devices. A low-cost microstrip antenna planar patch antenna resonating at L5 frequency is developed with optimized parameters for automotive applications. For the last 15 years, periodic structures are one of the most noticeable topics of research due to their promising applications in microwave circuit and antenna design. A Photonic Band Gap (PBG) dielectric substrate comprised of periodical structures was used during the development of this project intending to minimize the surface wave losses for a given bandwidth, and therefore, a higher performance antenna could be achieved.

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) has become one of the most important tools for innovation project development. It has been used for several companies and good results are being reported as effect of the methodology. This paper aims to present an application of DFSS on an automotive technology development process. It was possible to listen to the “Voice of customer”, translate it into measurable parameters, generate potential concepts and finally identify the most adequate technology. The use of Design for Six Sigma methodology was shown very efficient to technology prospect. The structured frame work and focusing in two main points (being them first “Get the right design” and then “design right”) are the strengths of the methodology.

This paper aims to present a productive capacity analysis in a manufacturing assembly line of an automotive industry. To perform this work the main tool used was Computer Simulation, using a software named ProModel, that works on Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and also using Design of Experiments (DOE), with a software named MINITAB. The first task of the project was problem definition followed by the related process mapping. This was the main element to develop the entire model. In validation process it was not used only quantitative methods, but also “hypothesis test” (1 sample-t), which is a quantitative method, using MINITAB. The study object was focused on the first shift and only for the most complex product assembled in the referred line. According to the inputs of the sub processes it was possible to identify those ones with highest potential to impact the output variable (quantity of products assembled).

This paper aims to present an application of some quality tools focused on best concept identification process to meet defined customer requirements in activities of process development in an industry of automotive sector. First of all it was done a literature review in order to clear establish the concepts of the following tools: “voice of the customer”, “affinity diagram”, “pair wise comparison”, “quality function deployment (QFD)” and “Pugh matrix”. After it is presented the application of these tools in activities of technology research of advanced engineering department. The first task was to identify all customers related to the process in study. After this, some interviews were scheduled with them and the entire “voice of customer” was collected. With all this information it was used “affinity diagram” to summarize the inputs and used “pair wise comparison” to prioritize customer needs. To translate voice of customer into measurable parameters it was used QFD.

Once microprocessor technology is introduced, a new world of opportunities becomes available to the automotive designer. Electronics opens the way for new approaches to systems management, driver information, collision avoidance and active controls that were not possible before. Besides that, a considerable fraction of today's vehicles are now equipped with telephones and navigation units are joining. In the next couple of years TV, video and multi-media PC will have increasing use in vehicles. The challenge for the electrical system designer is to find a medium which can support the data transfer required by such applications while maintaining electromagnetic compatibility with all other vehicle systems. This study discusses the importance of fiber optics ( more specifically Plastic Optical Fiber - POF ) to achieve these requirements.