Global manufacturing has the individual automotive component plants, on virtually all continents, scrambling for the “edge” to be the most competitive manufacturer and thus be the producer of choice.
To be competitive in price and quality and that over “the long haul” is a tall order, indeed. A lot depends on the machining processes producing the components that, assembled, make up the powertrain. While outsourcing other automotive parts might be the right economical and technological choice, to produce ones own engines and transmissions is still one of the areas of true “value adding” and also a matter of the manufacturer's image. Hence the industry's effort to offer ever better, more potent families of engines and transmissions.
New, advanced machining processes have evolved recently, that make manufacturing more productive and predictable.
The three areas most promising are: