Software Enhances Design Efficiency
The Spark and the Trax have emerged as cash cow models for GM Korea, which is now on track to normalization after a serious crisis. Both models are losing to competitors in the same category in Korea, but are popular abroad, with exports on the rise.
Every year, upgrading a vehicle and releasing a new model requires a fast and accurate design process. To this end, GM Korea's Bupyeong Technological Research Center has introduced MATLAB software of MathWorks. The GM Korea research center is one of GM’s key research and development (R&D) bases and has about a quarter of GM’s total worldwide technology researchers. Both the Trax and the Spark were developed under the leadership of the Bupyeong Technological Research Center.
MATLAB is a solution that provides a numerical analysis and programming environment and is used in a variety of scientific and engineering applications that require complex numerical computations. "We introduced and use MATLAB at GM Headquarters as well as GM Korea," said a representative of the Bupyeong Technological Research Center. "Using different programming languages, such as C, Java, and Python, in the car design phase, such as small cars, SUVs and electric cars, we could more than halve the process time that was several years in the past."
GM researchers boosted product design efficiency by applying a discrete optimization algorithm with MATLAB and converging the results in the form of discrete variables. When researchers enter code values that match the purposes of vehicles, such as steering and driving, MATLAB automatically creates optimal design.