New System Of Automotive Engineering For The 21st Century

The demands on automotive engineering, worldwide, are increasing rapidly; the tools for it have become far different from and more powerful than those available in the past. Combined, those forces portend a discontinuity in the nature of automotive engineering. The new automotive engineering systems will combine computerized information bases, different and better organized bodies of organized engineering information and experience and the techniques and information structures of expert systems and artificial intelligence. But they must and will capture, maintain, and highlight sound fundamental engineering principles and know-how and allow for creativity, initiative and judgments. They will expand capabilities and enhance the proficiency and cost effectiveness of automotive engineering. The new automotive engineering systems will require a different kind of engineer, different and continual education for those engineers, different support tools and staff for them, different structure of engineering organizations, and different interrelationships between engineering organizations. Many of the elements of the new automotive engineering systems exist; their integration is only beginning. Leaders for the system must arise and develop the skill to manage the new system.