Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering: A Practical Approach

I.D. #

C0703

Duration

3 Days

Competitive pressures are demanding vehicle designs that better satisfy customer wants and needs over the entire vehicle life cycle and, especially, are less expensive to build and operate. This can only be accomplished by understanding the translation of customer wants and needs to engineering requirements and then ensuring every vehicle produced conforms to these requirements for its entire life, even in the presence of a wide variety of customer usage and operational environment variations. The application of systems engineering techniques is a key success factor in accomplishing this task - higher quality products at lower cost.

The course goal is to enable the student to apply key systems engineering tools to practical vehicle problems. The basic three-step systems engineering process, comparison of the two different systems viewpoints and key methods and tools in each of these domains will be presented. Student exercises, drawn from practical vehicle problems, will be conducted and evaluated during this class. Integration of the two different systems viewpoints to create a vehicle conceptual design that fully satisfies customer requirements for the entire vehicle life cycle will be illustrated. Finally, translation of vehicle requirements to the manufacturing domain and how systems engineering methods and tools enable reliable and robust design will be described.

Learning Objectives

By attending this seminar, you will be able to:

Describe the basic systems engineering three-step process and the important inputs and outputs of each step
Describe the vehicle architecture viewpoint and indicate why it is critical to vehicle commercial success
Describe the vehicle functional viewpoint and indicate why it is critical to vehicle customer satisfaction
Create hierarchical functional diagrams
Employ physical and functional models to create p-diagrams in support of ensuing FMEA as well as reliability and robustness engineering (Design for Six Sigma)
List the four types of verification that can be employed to ensure complete conformance to customer and commercial requirements and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each type

Who Should Attend

The systems approach is useful to engineers who already know the basic function and design of their subsystem. Any engineer responsible for ensuring excellent physical or functional interaction with neighboring subsystems should attend. In addition, engineers responsible for understanding customer wants and needs and subsequently translating them into engineering requirements will learn specific methods that enable this difficult translation to succeed. Engineers responsible for creating a vehicle architecture and managing the subsystems that fully respond to vehicle requirements will benefit from this course, and finally engineers responsible for specifying allowable part variations to the manufacturing and supplier communities will understand how these specifications link to critical customer, vehicle and subsystem requirements.

Prerequisites

Participants should have a Bachelor's degree in engineering or science and some professional experience working on a specific vehicle program or subsystem.

Seminar Content

DAY ONE

Overview of Systems Engineering
- Three-step process
- Introduction to the two systems viewpoints
- Introduction to data-based decision making and systems verification
Architecture Viewpoint - Overview
- Vehicle and subsystem levels; interface implications
- Architecture diagrams (introduction)
- Ensuring interface traceability from level to level
Choosing a Vehicle Architecture
- Importance of vehicle architecture to commercial success
- Relation of vehicle architecture to platform engineering
- Concept-level engineering decision making process
- Classroom exercise - vehicle architecture selection
Architecture Diagrams
- Templates
- Interface reconciliation process
- Interface diagram class exercises (vehicle & subsystem)

DAY TWO

Functional viewpoint - Overview
- Customer level
- Vehicle and subsystem levels
Translating from customer wants and needs to vehicle engineering requirements
- Methods for discovering the customer - engineering translation
- Customer translation exercise
Functional Diagrams
- Templates
- Requirements decomposition
- Requirements allocation to subsystems-connecting functional and architecture viewpoints
- Functional decomposition exercise (including requirements allocation)
State Analysis - Introducing the Control Element
- State transition diagrams
- State analysis exercise

DAY THREE

Connection to Reliability and Robustness
- How the two systems viewpoints lead to p-diagrams
- P-diagram template
- P-diagram exercise
Verification
- Overview and types of verification
- Detailed design optimization using verification techniques
- How verification confirms customer and commercial success
- Verification for reliability and robustness
- Capstone exercise -- Customer translation; Vehicle functional analysis; Vehicle and subsystem interface diagramming; Supplier/manufacturing communication
Key learning Points and Class summary

Instructor(s):

Paul Berry

Paul Berry is currently the Powertrain Core Competency Project Manager at Ford Motor Company. During his tenure with Ford, Mr. Berry has been a Powertrain Systems Engineering Technical Specialist responsible for defining processes, methods, tools and training for implementing the systems engineering approach within the powertrain community. He implemented a common set of vehicle attributes, attribute cascade diagrams, trade-off studies, and interface diagrams. Mr. Berry authored the Ford Product Development System (FPDS) Targets Balancing and Cascading course, which was delivered both in North America and Europe. He is a co-author of the Ford Systems Engineering Fundamentals course, and has received two Quality Awards.

Mr. Berry has also led systems engineering projects for aerospace, highway, rail and water-borne vehicles, as well as for consumer electronic systems. He is a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt and teaches systems engineering subjects as well as both executive and technical-level Design for Six Sigma classes. Mr. Berry has taught courses at Boston University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and has lectured at the University of Detroit-Mercy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A member of SAE and INCOSE, Mr. Berry holds a B.S. and M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Fees:

$1545

SAE Members*:

$1236 - $1391

* The appropriate SAE Member discount will be applied through the Registration process. Discounts vary according to level of membership: Elite Member 20%; Premium Member 15%; Classic Member 10%

CEU