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Over the last ten years, the plastics industry has been under pressure by many industries, such as automotive, to resolve issues from an application point of view, such as value engineering, part quality, and time to market. Value engineering programs have been a major thrust for the last several years in many industries. These programs have taken the form of low cost materials, systems integration, part weight reduction, and lower fabrication costs. The automotive industry, forced by foreign competition during the 1980s, has also led the way in providing an emphasis toward improved part quality resulting in longer part life cycles. In addition, automotive producers are shortening their design engineering phase which has caused the plastics industry to find methods to more rapidly move technology from research and development to end-use applications.