A New Approach to End of Line Vehicle Audit - Turning Subjective Evaluations to Objective Rankings using a New Signal Processing Algorithm

Vehicle manufacturers face constant challenges to audit the build quality of their products in real time driving conditions. The build quality can be impacted by supplier parts, assembly issues, and ever evolving customer demands. The traditional method of auditing quality comes as drivers subjectively evaluate NVH of the final product while conducting a multitude of functional checks in real-life driving conditions. In the case of in-cabin sound levels, the evaluation is often difficult and unrepeatable because of weather, traffic, varying road conditions and user variability. The authors have developed a signal processing algorithm which detects such non-conformities and removes their effect to automatically produce objective data and vehicle rating with a portable analysis system. This allows the OEM to confidently set targets based on psychoacoustic metrics. These have been used to identify unintentional build anomalies and long-term trend analysis related to build quality.