Many high risks of failure in developing and applying new technologies exist in the recent automotive industry because of big volume of selling cars in a global market. Several recalls cost companies more than $ 100 million per problem.
New technologies always have uncertainty in performing intended functions at various given conditions despite the fact that engineers do their best to develop technologies to meet all the requirements. Uncertainty of new technologies put companies into danger of failing in their business. Therefore, many companies tend to take interest in reducing risks from the uncertainty in technologies, but the increasing complexity of modern automotive technologies make it difficult to develop complete technologies.
A new engineering methodology called SPEED Engineering was introduced to reduce the risks of new technology applications and to facilitate engineers to conceive innovative ideas dominating the market in the future. Also it is used to help engineers solve engineering problems caused by system conflicts or complex factors. It consists of 3 modules: 1) generating new ideas, 2) finding out problems in technologies which ideas were realized into and 3) solving the problems discovered.
Engineering methods such as QFD, FMEA, TRIZ and Robust Engineering which are proven to be excellent in many cases are fully or partially used to conduct each module. SPEED Engineering is not simply a mechanical assembly of these methods but a chemically integrated one. Wastes which engineers suffer from in innovation activities like DFSS, Six Sigma and FMEA can be eliminated and more values can be added through this engineering process.
Especially, SPEED FMEA, one of the modules of SPEED Engineering, played an excellent role in preventing failures of 407 new technologies from occurring and gave Hyundai Motor Company 1 billion dollars of financial benefits for 2 years.