Report examines cost savings for auto interiors
A
Robert Eller Associates product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jul 17, 2003
Automotive interior module suppliers are caught in a classic profit squeeze.
Automotive interior module suppliers are caught in a classic profit squeeze.
Declining vehicle prices are forcing auto OEMs to continue seeking price reductions after 3 years of 5%/year requests.
At the same time, plastic resin price increases, which typically account for almost half of fabrication costs, have risen 40-50% in the past 12 months.
Bob Eller, President of Robert Eller Associates, noted that: "Those Tier 1s which can rapidly deploy fabrication technologies that add value while reducing costs will gain market share and retain profits." Examples of cost saving or value-added interior trim technologies in North America and Europe include: two shot moulding of skin and substrate in a single mould (from Ube); direct compounding/fabrication (used by JCI and Faurecia for Mercedes C-Class instrument panel upper substrate moulding); low-pressure moulding of door trim panels (from several Tier 1s); in-mould assembly of heating/cooling vents (from ITW and others); comoulding of TPO skin and EPP foam (to be used on upper instrument panels as a running change by JSP International); textile/polyolefin foam laminates for door trim medallions by Michel Thierry (France) on the Renault Laguna II; and backmoulding of textile-surfaced ABC pillars (MollerTech and IBS Brocke of Germany are examples of European companies gaining share in North America based on European plastics fabrication technology).
These are among the trends identified and quantified for North America and Europe in the newly released multi-client study, "Automotive interior soft trim: skins, foams, coated fabrics, textiles, and acoustic barriers", offered by Robert Eller Associates.
This is the company's second, comprehensive analysis of the technology, economics, and markets for automotive interior soft trim.
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