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The purpose of this study is to establish the criteria of election of an electrical architecture tailor-made for the emerging markets, to be applied during the whole vehicle's lifecycle. A literature review about related subjects as the meaning of "electrical architecture," its techniques, criteria and methodologies of development, and the definitions of emerging and developed markets is also presented. Based on the bibliographical research, documentary analysis and unstructured interviews with active members of the automotive industry, the criteria for election of electrical architectures for emerging markets was established, as well as their describers and swing-weights, required by the use of the additive aggregation method - a multi-criteria decision taking method. The criteria were applied in two case studies of automotive industry: the developments of a low-cost hatch vehicle and a mid-size luxury sedan vehicle, both designed for emerging markets.

Optimize a product that exists for years, is not always an easy task. These products, of simple concept, are created and maintained without significant changes along its life. This is the case, for example, of the fuel level senders and valves of motorcycle's fuel tanks. This work presents an example of a new product that add value to the fuel tank system with a reduced global cost. Usually, the concern relies on the improvement of individual parts. The concept developed looked for an integration of both parts in just one product. The advantages of this integration are: reduction of fuel tank system components by 40% in average, reduction of fuel leak potential, increase of the value add, cost reduction and improvement at the motorcycle assembly line, etc. This work start with a study of the motorcycle market, analyzing current products and then concluding with showing the advantages and differences of the new product concept.

Based on a 3D model generated in a CAD system, a rapid prototyping system can manufacture a prototype in few hours. The most common techniques for rapid prototyping use materials like resins and polymers. The difference between the material of the manufactured prototype and the real piece makes the realization of some tests with the prototype almost impossible, such as analysis of mechanical and chemical resistance. This work proposes a technique to make a prototype by machining it using a 3D machine. The great part of the industrial machining can be realized using 2½D machining. Some authors proposed methods to machine the sculptured surfaces in a 2½D machining; however, the surface finishing, depending of the application, is not so good. We proposed an algorithm capable of generating the toolpath for a 3D machining to attend this demand.