I spent a little time writing software for a plastic injection moulding company who supplied parts for a range of different automotive suppliers.
You could say that they were all made the same way — they were all moulded from tiny little plastic balls that are melted down — but the reality is that there was a huge difference in the products produced for each vehicle.
The vent for an A/C is one example. To produce that piece for a Ford might be one piece of plastic, which falls off the conveyor at about 1 every 20 seconds. The same piece for an Audi would take 3 different types of plastic, and some rubbery material, and would take about two minutes per unit - as well as some assembly, by a human, before it is done.
Injection molding and engineering over the last 20 years has basically been homogenized to works and doesn’t work.
I can promise you at Diamler, they’re designing the shape of the vent, and sending it to the supplier just like GM is doing. Same suppliers, and the details are being offloaded for like ten reason but among them is that it doesn’t make sense to have the mold experts in house, and every supplier knows their machines and abilities, the customer doesn’t.
You could say that they were all made the same way — they were all moulded from tiny little plastic balls that are melted down — but the reality is that there was a huge difference in the products produced for each vehicle.
The vent for an A/C is one example. To produce that piece for a Ford might be one piece of plastic, which falls off the conveyor at about 1 every 20 seconds. The same piece for an Audi would take 3 different types of plastic, and some rubbery material, and would take about two minutes per unit - as well as some assembly, by a human, before it is done.