Reverse Engineering in the Automotive Industry

Abstract

Ford Motor Company celebrated its 100-year anniversary in 2003. Looking back over the decades, automakers have seen five influential trends in automotive design: • the invention of the horseless carriage itself, a reengineering of a proven design; • the speed and productivity of Henry Ford’s mass production system, which was reengineered from the Chicago meatpacking industry; • an attempt by Alfred Sloan, president of General Motors, to appeal to individual customers’ desires by offering a greater variety of product models within the limits of mass production; • the use of a wide variety of quality assurance methods to produce standard and exchangeable parts to reduce manufacturing costs; and • attempting to fulfill the customer’s desire to have it all–the economy of mass production, design options to fit an individual’s taste and needs, and the highest possible quality.