Following Nature’s Lead for Ultimate Design Efficiency The ACP Process as Applied to FSV

The shapes and configurations of nature are wildly complicated, non-intuitive and completely amazing. The shapes and forms found in nature in the structure of a tree, a human skeleton, insects and animals are truly the most efficient designs imaginable. By mimicking the flawless balance between structure and strength of nature’s most efficient shapes, engineers can learn how to incorporate similar balance to product structural design for automobiles, aircraft and other systems. The Accelerated Concept to Product (ACP) ProcessTM is a methodology which enables the structure of a product, such as the vehicle’s body-in-white, to mimic “Nature’s Way” [13]. Doing so creates the ultimate design efficiency, where structure and strength are perfectly balanced for the intended function. ACP is a proprietary, performance-driven, holistic product design development method based on design optimization and incorporates the use of multiple CAE tools in a systematic process to generate the optimal design solution. This methodology provides solutions, which address the challenges facing the modern product development environment. It achieves this by synchronizing the individual facets of the product development process, resulting in an overall reduction in development costs and time to market.