Automobile Platform - Definition and Benefits

Definition and Benefits

Platform sharing is a product development method where different products and the brand attached share the same components. The purpose with platform sharing is to reduce the cost and have a more efficient product development process. The companies gain on reduced procurement cost by taking advantage of the commonality of the components. However, this also limits their ability to differentiate the products and imposes a risk of losing the tangible uniqueness of the product. The companies have to make a trade-off between reducing their development costs and the degree of differentiation of the products.

A basic definition of a platform in automobiles, from a technical point of view, includes: underbody and suspensions (with axles) — where the underbody is made of front floor, underfloor, engine compartment and frame (reinforcement of underbody). Therefore, key mechanical components that define an automobile platform include:

• Floorpan, the collective pieces of the large sheet metal stamping that serves as the primary foundation of the monocoque chassis, of most of the structural and mechanical components
• Front and rear axles and the distance between them - wheelbase
• Steering mechanism and type of power steering
• Type of front and rear suspensions
• Placement and choice of engine and other powertrain components

• Ford Ka

• Fiat Panda

• Fiat 500

• Fiat Uno

Vehicle platform-sharing combined with advanced and flexible-manufacturing technology enables automakers to sharply reduce product development and changeover times, while modular design and assembly allow building a greater variety of vehicles from one basic set of engineered components. Many vendors refer to this as product or vehicle architecture. The concept of product architecture is the scheme by which the function of a product is allocated to physical components.

The use of a platform strategy provides several benefits:

• Greater flexibility between plants (the possibility of transferring production from one plant to another due to standardization),
• Cost reduction achieved through using resources on a global scale,
• Increased use of plants (higher productivity due to the reduction in the number of differences), and
• Reduction of the number of platforms as a result of their localization on a worldwide basis.

The automobile platform strategy has become important in new product development and in the innovation process. The finished products have to be responsive to market needs and to demonstrate distinctiveness while — at the same time — they must be developed and produced at low cost. Adopting such a strategy affects the development process and also has an important impact on an automaker's organizational structure. A platform strategy also offers advantages for the globalization process of automobile firms.

Because the majority of time and money by an automaker is spent on the development of platforms, platform sharing affords manufacturers the ability to cut costs on research and development by spreading the cost of the R&D over several product lines. Manufacturers are then able to offer products at a lower cost to consumers. Additionally, economies of scale are increased, as is return on investment.