Integration hits overdrive in chassis systems

Suppliers are getting more and more responsibility in the design of suspension and other chassis modules and systems.

General Motors' Harvey Bell likes to say that it's easy to try out a new technology in a car and make it work once or twice. To make sure it works every time, for each customer, under each condition, however, “is a very significant challenge,” he noted.

Careful examination of how various technologies are integrated is needed “to make sure the vehicle comes together and works as a total product from a systems standpoint,” said Bell, Executive Director of Vehicle Performance at GM. He puts the size of the challenge into perspective by relating the opinion of an Ohio State University professor who believes the automobile is, by a couple orders of magnitude, the most complex product sold because of the number of parts, opportunities for error, and range of use conditions involved.