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Design Your Own Car PartsDrivers may soon be able to have parts of the family car built to their own design by a local dealer as a result of advanced rapid manufacturing systems being developed by a consortium of UK engineers.
The new rapid manufacturing (RM) machines are expected to be the product of a Foresight Vehicle initiative backed financially by the UK government, involving more than 400 companies and universities, and aimed at keeping the country ahead with high technology in the automotive sector.
If the project is a success, the technology involved could also be adapted to the aerospace and medical fields.
Under a Foresight Vehicle research project called MANRM (which stands for management, organisation and implementation of RM) experts from Loughborough University's rapid manufacturing research group in the English Midlands have been linked with other organisations such as MG Rover, Perkins Engines and the Martin Baker aircraft ejector seat company.
Together, they have been carrying out research over the past 18 months and now believe they can produce the first customised manufacturing system within three years.
The idea of such machines is to allow seats, steering wheels, gear knobs and handbrakes to be built to the exact individual requirements of car buyers.
Seats designed to a person's exact profile would increase comf
more: www.ferret.com.au/articles/13/0c0... (380)
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1/12/2004 | Viewed 8,591 time(s)
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