An Innovative Wheelcover System for the 1990's

This paper reports the aggressive response of one wheelcover supplier/material manufacturer team to the 1990's automotive requirement for “black-box” engineering services. The team initiated a new wheel-cover system design from concept to proven operational status with patents filed. The uniqueness of this development is the generic design approach, developing a wheelcover system that covers all car companies' requirements, rather than for a specific car company. The engineering development employed computer-aided-design, finite element analysis, and Taguchi design-of-experiment methods. The conclusion of this study is the absolute correlation between authority and responsibility; an example of suppliers' ability to meet functional requirements given full authority for material, process, and design.