Video: Presentation by Richard Parry-Jones

This is a very insightful talk by the famed Ford engineer. He covers a number of topics including chassis tuning, vehicle development, manufacturing, and F1 racing sprinkled with anecdotes and stories throughout.

Flexible Stampings

This is a brilliant concept. Flex tooling that can make different parts from the same die. It's another tool available to manufacturers for reducing costs and lead times. This looks promising and I hope it makes its way to the automotive market soon.

Raw Material Deals

The cost of raw materials has risen so much (metals, plastics, rubber, oil, etc) that Tata (and virtually every other automaker) is having a hard time controlling and absorbing costs.

There doesn’t appear to be any good long term way of hedging against rising prices other than to reduce use, as several Japanese manufacturers have announced.

Reductions would come in the form of using less in the vehicles (lighter weight) as well as reducing waste in the manufacturing process, and making cars that last a lot longer but are upgradeable. Again, I would suggest that’s why we need to take a long look at longer auto lifecycles.