ETA Wins Prestigious SAE Innovation Award

Submitted by jcohen on Thu, 04/01/2010 - 12:49

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 http://www.eta.com or call (248)
729-3010.

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Attention publishers: Please send all
sales leads to Laura Abert, Marketing Manager
Engineering Technology Associates, Inc. 1133 E. Maple Rd, Ste #200, Troy, MI 48083

Phone: (315) 299-4314 Email: lauraeta [dot] com