The ATP focused program on motor vehicle manufacturing technology will foster innovations in manufacturing practices that could slash time- to-market to 24 months, markedly better than even the best times logged to date by foreign or domestic car makers. Sought-after advances will lead to more versatile equipment, better control and integration of processes, and greater operational flexibility at all levels, from suppliers of parts, dies, and machine tools to assembly plants. With the reusable, modular equipment and processes envisioned by the program, the cost of retooling car-manufacturing facilities -- now ranging between $1.2 billion and $2.9 billion, depending on the extent of the changeover -- could be reduced by as much as tenfold. The savings would reduce the size of break-even production volumes needed to recover investment costs, making it profitable for U.S. automobile companies to compete in small- volume markets at mass-production prices.

The automotive sector, which accounts for about 4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product and employs more than 2 million people, will be the initial beneficiary of the anticipated technologies. Within the sector, parts and equipment suppliers, which will be directly involved in program efforts, will benefit most directly from the improved performance capabilities enabled by the technologies. Outside the sector, a variety of other manufacturing industries, from metal furniture to precision instruments, will be able to exploit targeted improvements in machining, grinding, and other widely used processes.

Numbering about 3,500 companies, U.S. automotive suppliers tend to be small and medium-sized firms. Most spend little or nothing on process-oriented research, leaving them ill-prepared to anticipate and respond to major shifts in manufacturing technology and automobile concepts. An example of such a turning point is an end-of-the-decade transition to lightweight aluminum components for most body and powertrain parts now made with cast iron. If domestic suppliers are slow to respond to this transition, U.S. auto makers will be forced to look abroad to meet their needs for machine tools and parts.

The new focused program will concentrate on four major technical areas that underpin significant improvements in capabilities and performance:

• Material forming processes: Develop processes that substantially improve the quality of stamped sheet metal parts; improve stamping precision to achieve sub-millimeter dimensional tolerances; and reduce by 30 percent the time required to design, test, and produce sheet metal dies. Another thrust focuses on developing and scaling up manufacturing systems that enable a range of cost-effective applications of advanced materials in light vehicles.

• Material removal processes: Increase the capabilities and speed of machining and grinding processes, enable greater flexibility so that machining stations can be reconfigured to meet new-model requirements, and accelerate design and fabrication of tooling -- the most costly and time-consuming phase of changeovers.

• Assembly processes: Develop economical, modular systems for body and powertrain assembly that can be implemented (or reconfigured) within 4 to 6 months, as compared with today's average of 24 to 36 months, and improve technologies for controlling paint and coating processes.

• Systems integration: Advance technologies for intelligent, or predictive, monitoring and control of processes, and accelerate progress in efforts to achieve plug-and-play compatibility among equipment, processes, and information management systems, an emphasis that complements other manufacturing R&D efforts.

At the federal level, a recent inventory of manufacturing-related programs, conducted for the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV), revealed only a small collection of activities devoted to factory-floor technologies, despite their well-recognized importance to accomplishing PNGV goals.

Without the collaborative efforts that the ATP aims to marshal, U.S. auto makers and their suppliers would not mount and sustain the range of activities needed to achieve the major advances in technology, manufacturing practices, and industry performance that are the objectives of the new program.