Using CATIA to create the 1997 Dodge Dakota

Common body architecture and the use of CATIA simulations reduced complexity, improved overall quality and greatly enhanced productivity at Chrysler's Dodge City/Warren Truck Assembly Plant where the 1997 Dodge Dakota pickup truck was built along with the highly successful Dodge Ram.

Through the use of common body architecture - or the ability to build the new Dakota the same way as the Dodge Ram - the Dakota used the same production line as the Ram and was built using similar processes, with only the size of the components differing. Using common body architecture between the Ram and the Dakota helped to bring a new vehicle to production within 30 months for less than $500 million.

According to Frank Ewasyshyn, Vice President, Advance Manufacturing Engineering, lessons learned from the full-size Dodge Ram experience helped serve as a road map throughout the development process for the new Dakota.

"We knew, for instance, that the cab construction on the Dodge Ram was world class. So we took the construction concepts and structure from the Ram cab, reduced it to fit the dimensional requirements of the Dakota, and then worked with the designers and engineers to come up with a new cab for the Dakota. This produced a common design and a common manufacturing process for Ram and Dakota.

"Lessons learned from the Dodge Ram allowed us to reduce complexity at the plant and dramatically reduce the development time for Dakota," said Ewasyshyn. "That's what common body architecture provides for us."

Common body architecture was just one area of the manufacturing team's up-front involvement in product development The extensive use of CATIA technology was another factor that allowed the platform team to reduce product development time by 30 months from the previous program.

New CATIA technology allowed the team to conduct a full-plant computer simulation prior to the first tool being built. The simulation included 600 experiments that tested all plant operations including 21.3 miles of the plant's conveyer system. The experiments simulated 5,500 days of actual production. Simulations helped determine the number of vehicle carriers required to meet production requirements, the proper mix of Dodge Rams to Dodge Dakotas, and how downtime and bottlenecks in certain areas affected the manufacturing system For example, it was determined that fewer carriers and less conveyer footage were required to meet the plant's production rates. Full-plant simulation helped the plant reduce cost by $809,000.

Use of other CATIA systems also allowed the team to simulate the robotics and tooling on individual processes in the manufacturing system as well as reduce development time and improve productivity at the start of the Dakota's launch. All of the new tooling and processes were verified first at Plymouth Road, where the Dodge Dakota was developed, and later at the Chrysler Technology Center pilot plant before being introduced into the Dodge City/Warren Truck Assembly Plant.

"Refining and verifying processes first on the CATIA systems and later through the pilot plants made the launch that much more predictable," said Ewasyshyn. "Both of which helped us reduce complexity, improve quality and enhance productivity."

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