In the current automotive industry, it is common that the driveline subsystem and components are normally from different automotive suppliers for OEMs. In order to ensure proper system integration and successful development of driveline system NVH performances, collaboration efforts between OEMs and suppliers are very demanding and important.
In this paper, a process is presented to achieve successfulness in developing and optimizing vehicle integration through effective teamwork between a driveline supplier and a major OEM. The development process includes multiple critical steps. They include target development and roll down, targets being specific and measurable, comprehension of interactions of driveline and vehicle dynamics, accurate definition of sensitivity, proper deployment of modal mapping strategy, which requires open data sharing; and system dynamics and optimization. More specially, the supplier can work with OEM to seek the most cost-effective solutions, through tuning the driveline system dynamics to provide "quiet" frequency zone against vehicle sensitivity, to avoid normally needed costly suspension changes. Two case studies of a pick-up vehicle driveline program integration are used in this paper to illustrate the effectiveness of the development process. The paper also presents the approach used to effectively and efficiently minimize risks for all of the complexities in the program where the complexity is tremendous.