Abstract
The design as well as the development of vehicle components are and will be
affected by the criteria of active and passive safety, comfort, environmental compatibility, design
and increasingly by quality and economic efficiency of the later product. In this context,
the safety against failure of a vehicle component is comprehended as quality while the cost-effective
realisation is seen as economic efficiency. In order to design vehicle components
according to these criteria in a qualitatively and economically optimised way, the customer´s
influence has to be regarded besides the OEM´s know-how as well. By means of a holistic
approach, an identification of the customer requirements and thus the accomplishment of
these requirements with a concurrent increase of the economic efficiency are to be aimed at.
Referring to this, a holistic approach will be presented that realises the methodology consequently.
The so-called DRV parameter space constitutes the basis that is spanned by the three
parameters driver (customer), vehicle and road (environment). The driver is distinguished
with regards to the control of the interfaces inside the car. The vehicle considers the system
behaviour of the components inside the vehicle while road (environment) describes the area
of application (road, traffic control, climate etc.) where the vehicle is manoeuvred by the
driver. The configuration of this drv-parameter space varies depending on the contemplated
vehicle system / components, only considering the relevant influencing parameters.
To the fore of the presentation are the following aspects: A system and component-related
determination of the customer-relevant requirements as a basis of the design process: depending
on the contemplated system and / or component, the relevant / substantial characteristics
of the drv-parameter space are derived here. The procedure is presented considering the systems
"power train", "chassis" and "air conditioning" as examples. The results of the analyses
are representative customer collectives that can be used as a basis of operational and endurance
testing of the system as well as for design optimisation. The methodology is supported
by extensive driving tests with test persons as well as by simulations, thus it purveys representative
results referring to the identification of customer requirements.
Keywords: load population, component testing, simulation, customer behaviour, customer requirements, representative load populations