Search Results

In nowadays market, highlighted by global products, companies are pushed to sell products that comply with legal and customer requirements in different countries and, not unusually, different continents. In order to achieve such challenge, and pressed to reduce project and production costs, companies are spreading design centers around the world, based on regional expertise. These excellence centers must work together to benefit from synergies and local skills from different regions. Such projects are staffed by Virtual Team (BINDER, 2007), whose members barely face each other. This means teams will work frequently with people they have never met, who live on different time zones and have different cultures. As a consequence, communication is done basically through computer-based media, mainly based on emailing, and must be even clearer and more direct than with the people who work on the next desk.

The paper describes the experience of the Federal University of Santa Catarina - UFSC, Brazil, in the elaboration and the implementation of the Mobility Engineering Center. Aspects related to the project and the circumstances which led UFSC to create another center outside the main campus are presented. The main reason behind this venture is the great national demand for professionals in various field of Mobility Engineering, areas such as, automobilistic, railway, mechatronics, naval, aerospace and aeronautical, infrastructure and logistic engineering. All these specializations are concentrated in the new campus which is situated in the city of Joinville which is about 180 km from the main UFSC-campus. The lessons learned from the administrative and pedagogical experiences involved in the implementation of the new Center since 2009 are discussed. Other relevant aspects will also be presented.

In nowadays automotive market, highlighted by global products, companies are pushed to sell vehicles that comply with legal and customer requirements in different countries and, not unusually, different continents. In order to achieve such challenge, and pressed to reduce project and production costs, companies are spreading design centers around the world, based on regional expertise and lower labor costs. These excellence centers must work together to benefit from synergies and local skills from different regions. Such projects are staffed by Virtual Team, whose members barely face each other. This means teams will work frequently with people they have never met, who live in different time zones and have different cultures. As a consequence, communication is done basically through computer-based media, and must be even clearer and more direct than with the people who work at the next desk.

The process development of products due to raised amount of information to be manipulated is characterized for its complexity. To assist the product project innumerable tools exist: CAD (Computer Aided Design), CAE (Computer Aided Engineering), CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing), QFD (Quality Function Deployment) and the TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) and others. This article presents an application of QFD (Quality Function Deployment) and of the TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) to assist professionals of the CAE in the design components in the computational simulation of durability. It also presents the differences between the mathematical modeling using the attachment points of the part used in this paper in two different ways. To evaluate the results of the application of the proposal, a critical analysis of the modeling used currently and the proposal will be carried through.

Companies must constantly seek for leadership in products and services. Under this scenario, companies have looked for cooperation and tested models to integrate their activities with academic applied research centers. This model induces implementation of best practices and share explicit and tacit employed knowledge. The model can also serve as a methodology to transfer technology. The proposed model defined as “Science Academy Model” has three dimensions: i) education and training, ii) applied research; iii) productive sector technological demands. These three dimensions are managed on the basis of considering the QCT = Quality, Cost and Time (or delivery) indicators and targets. The productive sector is responsible to present its problems and/or demands, detail the scope and deliverables, and the target performance indicators (QCT). This model was to some extend inspired by the existing TheoPrax® Methodology, developed in Fraunhofer ICT, Germany.

The Brazil automotive industry is projected to reach 2.4 million units in 2007. I recent years some of the industry migrated to non traditional regions for productivity gains. With the OEMs geographical move, traditional Tier 1 suppliers followed OEMs to new locations, on the basis of a better result (Quality, Cost and Timing (delivery). Tier 1 suppliers relying on bringing parts and components from distant locations, may generate a difficult cost/logistics/results balance, and do not optimize quality levels and business results. This paper unveils a 2006 - 2009 initiative in Bahia. The State Government and the Federation of Industries joined efforts to install competitive Tier 2+ suppliers in the northeast of Brazil, with the support of the German Government agency GTZ to provide the proper technology.

The attributes of the project team play a fundamental role in the product development process (PDP), since they, have a significant influence on the conducting of activities, making of decisions and liaison with customers. The importance of the project team is also recognized in the management of the potential risks that can appear during the PDP, because risk management (RM) depends strongly on the company culture and the commitment of the project team involved. However, in general, the culture of a company is not pro-active in the sense of anticipating potential problems that may appear and generally the project team resists analyzing these potential problems for fear of exposing and consequently committing themselves. In this regard, this paper presents a brief introduction on product development and its importance and management. Subjects related to risk management, the product design process and the project team are then discussed.

In the process of definition the component design specifications, the dependence and interdependence among the requirements, rules, strategies and design recommendations should be considered. However, in the conceptual design phase, the level of abstraction of the available information is high, and the methodologies present only superficial recommendations about the process to define design specifications. The consequences of these approach are reflected on the generation of conceptions with high costs and lost of resources during the design process. The objective of this paper is to present a methodology to define the design specifications, its application in the design of injection molded components and the software SISCOI developed to support this activity.