Strategic substitution of new materials for old: Applications in automotive product development

The developments in materials over the last decade have been considerable with the automotive industry being one of the leaders in innovative product applications. The introduction of new, or modified or alternative materials and processes for a given application is dependent on satisfying a lot of different factors. Competitive and legislative pressures, creating the need for change, affect these factors considerably. The process, direction and speed of change Lire often reactive, with demands of the day heavily influencing the decision-making. Strategically taking into account previous Change, whether Successful or not, as part of the product development process, can realise considerable benefit. To be completely open-mined, this process can be supplemented by previous forecasts of materials usage, which if circumstances had been different some indicators Could now be realisable. This paper investigates. through examples of materials substitution in the automotive industry, how technologies limited by available materials can be overcome by the strategic introduction of newer materials. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.