News From the Auto Industry

Developed by GM R&D with assistance from EDS, dieCAS (for die Casting Analysis System), is a workstation-based CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) product that has saved GM more than $8 million annually, according to the company. Since 1990, it has been used to reduce scrap and improve productivity in GM Powertrain’s die casting operations for transmission cases and engine blocks, GM added.

If you review the executive rosters of the leading companies in the automotive industry, OEMs and suppliers alike, we can all pick out good leaders and not-so-good leaders (names withheld on purpose). I think we all can take a chapter from the GM book of cultural change. If we can all learn from the success of others we’ll be further ahead in the long run. Why reinvent the wheel!

“By commercializing dieCAS, we will provide improvements in the cost and quality of castings, including non-powertrain applications, that are purchased from our suppliers,” explained Gary McDonald, director of the Enterprise Systems Lab at the GM Research and Development Center. “Furthermore, under the agreement, GM can continue to use dieCAS for its own casting operations at a reduced cost by spreading the costs of software maintenance over a wider number of users.”

Steffe added that dieCAS has shortened process development time up to one year for large powertrain castings by eliminating trial and error with physical hardware. The scope of the dieCAS analysis includes heat transfer and solidification, liquid metal flow, and casting and die distortion, he said.

With the purchase, Archstone, which also owns Archstone Studio City and Archstone Studio Colony, will control 827 units along Studio City’s Bluffside Drive and is investing in a Studio City apartment market where the average rent was $1,577 a month during the third quarter, 18 percent more than the county average, according to RealFacts.