Manufacturing Industry
Car Manufacture
Car manufacture has seen more change as the result of ICT than many
other manufacturing industries. The industry is expremely competiitve and there
has been global over capacity for some time. In this envirometn the fittest
survive.
Making and selling cars is a very competitive industry. Over recent
years many of the smaller companies have gone out of business or have been
taken over by the well-known car giants like the Ford Motor Company. Modern ICT
systems are used in the industry to improve efficiency, lower costs and
increase sales. Without investing in ICT systems, companies would not be
competitive in the marketplace
From the point where the motor manufacturer's research and development
team come up with a new idea for a car, ICT is involved in every process of
making the vehicle. The first stage involves using the computer design software
to produce 3D (three-dimensional) images of the new car. CAD (Computer Aided
Design) software is used to produce accurate scale drawings for all the
components that make up the vehicle. These drawings include the exact
dimensions and materials needed and this information is then passed from the
design software to the computensed machinery that make the parts. The linking
of the design software through a network to the manufacturing machinery is
known as CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacture). Often
parts are made by other companies and shipped to the factory to be assembled.
When this happens, the data on the parts needed is passed to the third
company.
|