Skip to main content
European Commission logo
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
CORDIS Web 30th anniversary CORDIS Web 30th anniversary
Content archived on 2024-05-29

Automotive Chassis Development for 5-Days Cars

Final Report Summary - AC-DC (Automotive Chassis Development for 5-Days Cars)

The rational of the AC-DC project was to achieve a step change improvement in the automotive supply chain efficiency and collaboration regarding new challenges, such as:
- steep increase in modularisation;
- market pressure for variability and flexibility to customers;
- cost pressure demands a reduction of stocks on the supply side;
- highly flexible mastering of global production and delivery.

This calls for the rapid development of an efficient 'networked' production scheme that will step-by-step replace the traditional hierarchy.

The AC-DC data base was maintained and since the development of a rapid industry recovery tool is now being pursued - which depends on new and close-to-market data sets - the focus was placed on carefully updating and maintaining the project's glossary.

VDI/VDE-IT was responsible for the task of financial management, which comprised the collection of the management reports of all partners. It included the technical support for the administration of the internal and external website.

The vehicle simulation was enhanced by the modelling of the EPS actuator, including the signals voltage, current, steering wheel angle, steering wheel torque, and forces in the steering rack. Simulation results including an advanced electrical network have been portrayed. The algorithms for the add-on functionalities have been developed further including road and manoeuvre identification.

The construction of the rear axle demonstrator was done at Volkswagen, including the ZF components rear-axle-differential and electric stabiliser. The hardware in the loop test bench at ZF has been restructured and the new components electric power steering and electric roll control have been included.

Early prototypes of key critical elements of the software environment were developed. First early prototype test with end-users were accomplished and the development of full prototypes of the software environment was started.

Appropriated mechanisms were developed based on the open source ebXML messaging service which provides a secure and reliable transport protocol to the ebXML Architecture. This service was enlarged to allow communication protocols involving several business messages and multi-cast or even broadcast communications. To assure a reliable and secure data transfer in the AC-DC network the communication protocols were implemented in a prototype.

Value stream mapping (VSM) and design (VSD) for the use case HECU were performed in each Budapest and Mechelen plant in order to reduce the total lead time from 'door to door'. ABC/XYZ analysis results were delivered for all customers of Mechelen. First process improvements were calculated with a total cost of ownership approach (TCO) in order to assure the benefit balancing within the complete supply chain.

Based on these results a user driven first test and assessment of the implemented early prototype solutions was carried out for the addressed application scenarios. To enable a first validation of the specified concept by end-users, the development of the early prototypes was specifically focussed on key critical elements and on those elements, having direct interaction with the human operator, the optimisation of an intelligent support of the cooperation between OEM and suppliers in the scope of the development and testing of vehicle electrical system.
123823911-19_en.doc