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As a result of increased competition and consumer demands, the automobile's product development cycle is changing and is shorter than ever before in history. The styling features, along with EPA and safety requirements, dictate more complex designs. Manufacturing techniques must be flexible, automated, and capable of higher production rates. Different components, assemblies and major systems are developed and assembled across the world and brought together to produce one vehicle. It is for the above reasons that dimensional variation in today's automobile design and manufacturing development processes must be understood and managed. The only way to properly accomplish this is to use a tolerance analysis tool with the capabilities to encompass all types of known variations. Understanding and managing these variations early in the product cycle will allow the product team to develop a robust design and manufacturing scheme that considers all dimensional variation.