ETA Wins Prestigious SAE Innovation Award
Product development technique reduces development costs and time to market
Engineering Technology Associates, Inc. (ETA) announced that it recently won the SAE Detroit Section/MIT Entrepreneurial Forum (MITEF) Vehicle Innovation Competition for its performance-driven product development technique, the Accelerated Concept to Product (ACP) process. The SAE Detroit Section, in concert with MITEF, developed the competition to recognize new inventors that have potential solutions for automobile industry challenges. ETA's ACP process was chosen from amongst five finalists that demonstrated excellent business cases and robust innovations with supporting science. Contrary to conventional methods where just one or a few design concepts are evaluated, the ACP process evaluates multiple load conditions simultaneously for hundreds of design concepts. The process improves product performance while reducing product mass and development, manufacturing and tooling costs.
Developed by ETA's advanced engineering group, the ACP Process is a proprietary, performance-driven, holistic product design development method that incorporates computer aided engineering (CAE) tools to generate the optimal design solution. One of the most important tools used is ETA's own PreSys, the advanced pre- and post- processor core finite element (FE) modeling toolset, part of ETA's newly released Inventium Suite.
According to ETA's Dr. Akbar Farahani, VP, Global Engineering, "The ACP process provides the optimal design solution to significantly reduce cost and time to market." Dr. Farahani added, "The process can reduce product development costs by 35 to 40 percent and reduce product mass by approximately 20 percent. In addition, product performance is improved in the areas of stiffness, noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH), crash/safety, and durability. Through part consolidation, manufacturing and tooling costs are also reduced."
Other advantages of ETA's ACP process include the ability to disregard underlying assumptions that can inhibit the design. Additionally, the optimum load-path is unconstrained by historical engineering judgment. Most importantly, it also allows for non-intuitive solutions for structural performance and can generate non-intuitive optimized shapes and component configuration. Significant efficiencies and product improvements are achievable, whether the process is applied to a component, sub-system or full-system. The resulting concepts are detailed, analyzed and optimized, ensuring that the final product meets all performance, mass and cost targets.
About Engineering Technology Associates, Inc. (ETA)
Engineering Technology Associates, Inc. (ETA) was established in 1983 by advanced product development engineers working as structural analysts for the world's largest automotive manufacturers. ETA's expertise in the areas of vehicle durability, NVH, metal forming, crashworthiness, occupant safety and product design have provided an intimate knowledge of the challenges and needs of the product development engineer. Proactive in the creation and implementation of new analysis methods and software, ETA is the developer of the Inventium Suite, DYNAFORM and VPG. ETA is a subsidiary of Cranes Software International Limited (CSIL).
For further information about ETA and its products, please visit to eta.com or call (248) 729-3010.
