Rapid Prototyping a Complete Vehicle

Rapid Prototyping a Complete Vehicle

Rapid Prototyping a Complete Vehicle

Date:21/03/2021

This case study proves Timoney is a seasoned heavy vehicle provider who can design and manufacture world-class components and vehicle systems within a tight schedule.

With a pressing deadline on the horizon, a customer urgently sought Timoney's expertise to manufacture two 8x8 rolling chassis for a defence vehicle. With just twelve months before the bid deadline, we swiftly initiated the planning process in collaboration with our client.

However, to meet the stringent timeline, we had to deliver the rolling chassis within nine months. This ensured our customer would receive them in time to finalize the vehicle build at their site and allow for ample testing before the bid submission.

How did it go?

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The Problem

Time was not our ally, that’s for sure. It’s an understatement to say that nine months to specify and build two completely drivable rolling chassis’ is a challenge.

To picture the level of difficulty, the whole process of designing a chassis system comes down to creating a brand-new chassis structure and using our expertise to integrate major vehicle systems, along with all of the ancillary systems.

And starting all that with a perspective of a fast-emerging deadline. To be able to trick the ticking clock, we had to come up with a solution of building a chassis and space-frame mock-up which replicated the vehicle hull structure. While we developed the rolling chassis, our Customer was working in parallel to design the complete vehicle, including the hull structure. The whole idea was to partially strip the rolling chassis and add the hull later on.

The Solution

To stand up to the challenge, Timoney assembled a team of suppliers and highly skilled technicians able to work together with military precision. Another critical step was having Customer staff on site, who were involved in all aspects of the project from design, development, testing and sign-off, while also providing a conduit for decision making, thus ensuring Customer needs were considered at all stages.

Efficient collaboration was the key. The beating heart of this collaboration was a set of group meetings we ran with all the experts involved in the project. It was on our shoulders to manage those meetings in a way to build relationships, track and solve any possible problems and to be crystal clear about each other’s requirements.

We couldn’t emphasize enough the need for speed, accuracy, and dispatch to complete the mission with success.

Our second move was designing a space-frame mock-up to replicate the front of the vehicle. The reason for that was to remove the components and then place them in relevant positions within the hull.

It was essential for us to coordinate the entire process of rapid prototyping precisely. Timoney needed to schedule each task to deliver all the components and sub-systems properly. Following the sequence was crucial to keep the manufacturing process move forward smoothly.

The Results

The story ends with success! We completed the two rolling chassis within schedule, including shake-down testing before shipping them to the primary build location

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