Ricardo has a World-class offering for Benchmarking new Transmission Technologies
Challenges in Transmission Benchmarking
Transmissions are increasingly important in the delivery of core vehicle attributes and a significant influence in customer purchasing decisions. Ricardo Benchmarking offers an objective means of evaluating competitor products and technologies.
In recent years the range of available transmission technologies has increased across all market sectors. Options that were previously seen as the preserve of premium or specialist vehicles are now available in volume markets. At the same time the development of new and advanced control technologies are transforming the performance of transmission systems and that of the vehicles in which they are fitted.
While automakers and transmission manufacturers will each tend to have their own preferred technologies and application strategies, it is essential in such a dynamic market to have an objective understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of all available candidate solutions and competitor products on the market. Most will already have their own in-house ‘tear-down’ capability whereby specimen products are stripped and reviewed as part of a formalised process.
However, the process to fully understand the performance of each transmission needs to be both exhaustive and objective such that a true like-for-like evaluation of each transmission can be made. Achieving this requires a considerable investment of resource, often in excess of that which might be available to an individual transmission manufacturer or automaker. It is against this background that Ricardo has established an independent benchmarking programme of transmission systems, which enables customers to gain an understanding of the true state-of-the-art based on a thoroughly objective and impartial analysis and assessment.
Benefits
The benefits of the Ricardo independent transmission benchmarking process are considerable. Customers are able to access an independent assessment of competitor products as well as a completely objective review of their own products. For new and emerging technologies in particular, this can offer a potentially much quicker route to understanding the critical parameters of the system and hence enables a much faster product development cycle. It enables a quantitative assessment of the likely investment levels required for manufacturing as well as providing qualitative information on the desirability to customers of individual features. As such, it can provide a significant and important contribution to the process of determining future transmission strategy.
Contact
By continuing to select state-of-the-art transmissions for the transmission benchmarking programme, Ricardo ensures that its customers can gain a rapid understanding of the very latest technologies for a fraction of the investment than would be required for an in-house investigation. Customers interested in participating in these and other transmission benchmarking studies or wishing to suggest transmission and driveline applications for future studies should contact:
By e-mail:
transmission.benchmarking@ricardo.com
By telephone:
+44 (0) 1926 319 319
Adrian Leavitt, Benchmarking