Ford

Success Stories

FORD MOTOR COMPANY - PRODUCT DEFINITION

Product design engineers at Ford Motor Co. needed to analyze the effect of including virtually thousands of car part choices in an early stage design. The complexity of this problem included that many choices precluded others at various stages in the design cycle. Decisions were not made on information and poor choices resulted in expensive cars with less desirable features. Developing an objective, optimized auto design system was the challenge, flexible enough to handle many auto designs and goal criteria.

Quantum leap developed a repeatable auto parts design tool that integrated into Ford’s overall design system and ran on a standard PC. The software analyzed the thousands of trade-offs and implications of parts usage and design changes and produced objective quantifiable information to facilitate the right decisions. The business results to Ford were: 1) an accelerated product design reducing the time to get the auto to the market, 2) lower parts costs, and 3) optimal feature set for the brand.

The engagement process with Quantum Leap involved first building a series of sophisticated auto design & parts models. The key was to separate the model from the analytic solution, which provides the flexibility to test, change, and update the models for various auto designs. Once the models are completed, Quantum Leap would apply its analytic software engines to the model, which in turn produces choices to the users, describing the impact of various parts, changes. The system recommends optimal design solutions based upon the constraints and goals management provides.

Ford