2005 DETROIT AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE

At its 25th anniversary with a strong heritage, Detroit Chinese Engineers Association (DCEA) successfully held its annual technical conference at Lawrence Technological University (LTU) in Southfield, Michigan on April 11, 2005.  Over 100 people attended the conference.  This is DCEA’s key activity each year, reflecting the mission of the organization - to promote scientific excellence, technical advancement, business leadership and career development.  This year’s technical conference nicely coincided with the SAE World Congress.  The 2005 Detroit Automotive Technology Conference focused on the new automotive technologies in vehicle safety, powertrain cooling and system integration, as well as China challenges and opportunities,  current status and development trend of Chinese auto electronics industry, as well as market and policy impact on technology advancement in China. 

The conference had a joint opening with another DCEA organized meeting – SAE China EE Seminar.  Dr. Charles Chambers, President of LTU, delivered a very worm welcome speech, followed by a brief overview of China automotive business by Ms. Ning Zhang, Deputy Secretary General of China SAE.  The morning technical session was started with a speech on current status and development trend of Chinese auto electronics industry by Mr. Guangqian Chen, Chair of China SAE EE Committee.  Dr. J.T. Wang of GM R&D Center gave an overview on crash preparation - the next frontier of vehicle safety.  The idea behind “crash preparation” was that if a vehicle could timely reconfigure its structures and interiors to the crash-ready state before an imminent crash, it could offer the needed crash protection while allowing new styling, design and utility previously not possible due to the needs for crash protection.  Mr. Robert Wade of Ford V Engine Engineering talked about system engineering by using vehicle cooling system as an example.  The application of system engineering principles led to organizational learning that improved the capability and confidence of the entire organization.  An optimized design solution could be found that satisfied all sub-systems and established a robust cooling system design. The V-Sequence model of system engineering was important for managing complex layered systems but it required the chief engineer intervention to resolve integration issues and insure timeliness of the program.

The lunch keynote speaker was Mr. Hau Thai-Tang, Director of Advanced Product Creation and SVT from Ford.  He was formerly Chief Nameplate Engineer for the Mustang program.  He talked about how the role of an automotive engineer must change to be relevant in today's automotive market.  He used the 2005 Mustang and other Ford products to help illustrate key points. 

The theme of the afternoon session was focused on China automotive challenges and opportunities.  Dr. Xiaozhi Liu, Director of GM China surveyed the world and China’s automotive market development, discussed about the role of automotive industry to the overall China economy.  Changes in consumer segments, policy and regulations all had important impact on the new technology development.  Her presentation also covered GM’s efforts on new technologies for sustainable development in China, as well as challenges to automotive industry.  Dr. Jun Zhu Senior Manager of PATAC used a significant amount information and data to illustrate recent movements of China auto policies toward concerns on fuel economy and environment preservation, as well as the interactions between policy move and technology advancement.  He also talked about the engineering capability buildup and product development in PATAC, as an evidence of the rapid progress of China auto industry.  All the presentations were very well received and captured the attention of the audience. The audience had so many questions that they continued to talk with the speakers after the formal sessions were over.  A number of the participants emailed the DCEA later and expressed their deep appreciation to the event.

Another important program in the conference was the annual award ceremony for High School Awards and Future Engineer Awards.  This year’s High School Award winners were Andy Wang of Troy Athens High School, Han Zhu of Canton High School and Lily Wang of Troy Athens High School.  The Future Engineer Award winners were Shuonan Dong of MIT and Mr. Yibo Ling of the University of Michigan.  These award winners demonstrated their extraordinary performance in academic and extra-curriculum activities, as well as their leadership in community services.  Each recipient received $500 monetary award sponsored by Ford, GM, DXC, Generalety as well as Reliable Analysis, Inc. 

This conference was the results of many weeks’ voluntary work of DCEA Conference technical committee, invited speakers and many DCEA members.  The technical committee included Yucong Wang, Jane Liu, Hua He, Kingman Yee, Yilu Zhang, Ming F. Shi, Sheila Wang, as well as Sheng-Dong Liu, Connie Yao, Alan Luo, Tai Chan, Wei Hong, Lifeng Xu, Paul Lin, Hong Yuan, Jie Du.  DCEA would like to invite more engineering professionals in the metro Detroit area to learn about the organization (www.detroitengineer.org) and join the organization.