Case Studies
The US automotive production volume in 2019 was 17.05 million units while it was 9.21 million in Japan. Investments toward the next-generation technologies such as CASE are very active in the US, and the US market’s door is wide open for new and innovative technologies and products no matter how small or new companies they are from – only if proper marketing is practiced to enter the market.
Let us share a couple of successful implementations A-Lex made with Japanese companies.
Case 1: Emblems for Toyota
There was a claim that a piece of plated ABS emblem hit the face of a driver when the airbag was exploded. A-Lex saw a demand for safer emblems and started to work with Japanese plastic and nameplate manufacturers to invent aluminum-metalized elastomer emblems that retained flexibility and did not get damaged on the surface when bent. A-Lex presented this new method with a large amount of test data that proved the new emblems’ bending strength and heat resistance. Now the emblem has been adopted to all Toyota vehicles manufactured in the US.
Case 2: Stainless Steel Parts for Exhaust Systems
Although some defects such as blowholes or shrinkage cavities in stainless casting are inevitable, they could cause serious accidents. Automotive industry had approx. 0.05 return rate of these stainless products after delivery, and A-Lex found this rate too high and introduced a Japanese manufacturer. This manufacturer had extremely thorough inspection systems for the entire 13 production processes and technically no returns. A-Lex emphasized the company’s thoroughness and successfully replaced existing competitors with the company.
Case 3: Precision Metal Component Prototyping
It usually takes more than a month to complete prototyping of automotive components. This Japanese prototyping company, on the other hand, offered high-precision prototype parts within one week. A-Lex differentiated them from competitors by emphasizing their accuracy and promptness, in addition to their cutting skills of difficult-to-process materials such as SUS 630, 64 Titan, Inconel and flexibility to accept small orders from 1 unit and successfully won orders.
