EPISODE 18 - ART CASASA

Welcome to the Impulse Spotlight where we meet with product development professionals and shine a light on the products they are most proud of.

In this episode, we speak with a Senior Engineering Executive whose efforts within the automotive industry helped to develop an internal radio system that provided the building blocks for products we see today like OnStar or the Amazon Alexa.

Our guest's extensive career has seen him contribute to industry sectors including oil and gas, technology, industrial goods, robotics, and AI development. In his down time he enjoys passing his knowledge and experience to his children, teaching his daughter new technologies, how to code, 3D printing and anything related to AI development. 

Art Casasa was born in Veracruz, Mexico, where he lived until he finished his studies in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. At the age of 24 his quest for knowledge and expertise brought him to the United States, where he completed his graduate studies, earning an MS in Manufacturing Engineering, an MBA, and a Masters of Finance. He also obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently pursuing a Master's in Artificial Intelligence at Penn State University. Art, his wife Marcela, and their two children now reside in the greater Houston area. 

After gaining valuable Operations experience within the automotive industry, Art shifted his focus to new product introductions, working with Tier One suppliers on product development.

In this episode we discuss Art's groundbreaking work in the automotive industry, and the process that brought his radio system to life. We explore the challenges and achievements of developing this system, we discuss a different perspective of prototyping for a system instead of a product, and the importance of testing for reliability and quality. Finally we speak on rising trends within the industry including designing for sustainability, AI's impact on generative design, as well as the past, present and future of 3D printing.

Show Notes:

 To learn more about Art, visit https://artcasasa.com/

Podcast Transcript:

Hey, Art, welcome to the show.

Hey, Troy. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me.

Sure, good to have you here. So I always start this off by telling everybody I started impulse 25 years ago after working for a company where basically I got my master's degree in product development . They had everything under 1 roof, industrial design, prototyping , design, engineering . Tooling, injection molding, you know, the whole the whole gamut. Tell us how you got into product development .

Yeah, sure. Thought about the question quite a bit and I think I am just going to get you to the the very start every star was in automotive. I was working in operations in actually in a manufacturing plant and I was in charge of introducing new products into the plant. So I was working in quality operations, making sure we had the right speed. And at some point in time, I actually requested my company to give me the opportunity to look at the whole new product development cycle and that is when I move from operations into the whole cycle developing automotive products in Detroit.

Okay, interesting. And so I know it is pretty broad, but tell us about a little bit of your history developing products?

Sure. We can start with the automotive industry. So 1 of the main products that I had and it was it was a system. We were developing radios, speakers, amplifiers, harnesses and the whole telematics package, which back then was the whole interaction with the automotive system. So if you see it from a new product development perspective, you have the system interaction from mechanical engineering , electrical engineering , software engineering , interacting with G. M. Chrysler to GA, the OEM suppliers as well as interacting with other suppliers where you were going to mount your parts or you needed power. So it was the the whole system by just developing 1 package.

So tell us a little bit more about it, like what what were some of the key features or innovations or things that we would not see if we saw it, you know, in the in the wild, so to speak. So some of the well, some of the key innovations for the process development and this was an eye opener for me at the time, which was having every single supplier in 1 room with the whole card data display where you can just mount your parts of course before the meeting and then you can discuss with suppliers on interferences with their parts, power requirements , all of that. So the whole process was map for us right now as far as features for the for the radios and the speakers, we were actually 1 of the main acoustic suppliers. In the world developing assists for, like I said, G m to ya Chrysler and now back then some of the the key key features that you would not see at the time was different touch screens that interacted directly with the customer. You did not have that at the time and some other. And this was just new to the world, sort of things of discussing or talking to the actual radio to to make things right, so what we know now as Alexa and all these products that are coming in for for natural language processing.

Interesting, interesting. So were there any I mean, you mentioned a couple, you know, the touchscreen and all that. But were there any other novel technologies or materials or methodologies you guys discovered while developing the product?

So the the most difficult integrations at that time where we have actually modules like series module, the X M modules, antennas and making sure that you had the telematics package completely installed and being able to remotely called for for services, right, when you crush a car, all of that. So all that was new at the time. So those were new technologies that were evolving, right? Of course, the other main thing that we and this is a training or more review. We have to reduce costs and reduce weight. So we had to this was not never ending curve of changing materials, looking for a new new ways of modifying your cost. So we discover many things, right? So we started using new aluminum, new aluminum alloys for the speakers, for the radios, for every single part that goes inside any metallic part as well as reducing the footprint of the Pcbs. So those were 2 to 3 years of development where we were able to reduce 30 to 40 % of weight as well as as cost in the first generation.

Interesting. So as I did not realize that I assume you are talking about on STAR for the the emergency call that is all part of the the radio system.

Right, it is. It has to be connected to your radio, right? This is the whole telematics package because it goes through your speakers through the amplifier, so you need to make sure that there is no failures when things happen, right, so. Which was a very interesting experience being in the 1 star call center listening to calls, you know, going there and actually looking at how the the products are used and how you can improve them. So yeah, everything needs to be connected. So no point of failure in that 1.

yeah. You mentioned reducing the PCB size. Is the PCB like right there in the-behind the display or is it somewhere else in the car?

It is right there, right? And there is there is it could be 1 PCB, it could be stack Pcbs. So we always worried about costing. We always worried about the footprint power requirements . So you it is a never ending curve, right? And I can. Just for as an e.g., when we started the first let us say the radio was $100, wish it was not right. But when we finish the cycle of cost development or cost out after 506 years, you could see a cost down maybe from 100 % to 65 % of the original cost, which was tremendous right?

Sure, interesting. So I am I am getting a little bit off track here. Sorry, but it just popped in my head with the P C B's. Do you guys have to build in some kind of dampening to deal with vibration and things like that? Or are they just robustly built? How do how does that handle. So in the automotive industry, you have a very robust reliability testing, right, so you go through, uh, vibration, you have certain gs that you have to pass, you also go through dust. Cold chambers, hot chambers, all of those things, right, whatever the radio is going to see or whatever your components will see. So we had to make sure that every single component passed. I forgot the amount of G's that they need to withstand. But yeah, it was built into the into the Pcbs right into into that radio. Actually, the most difficult part. You do not see these radios anymore, but the most difficult part was how to dampen vibrations in city changes. So when when we had DDR city changes, there were so many mechanical parts that dampening every single vibration to avoid any mechanism problems was tremendous .

Yeah, I did not think about that, but yeah, I am sure that was an engineering feat in and of itself.

The whole mechanism was very, very, very complicated .

Yeah. So we have helped literally design thousands of products and every 1 of those journeys is different. Can you kind of walk us through the journey of developing the system and like what the steps involved were?

Yeah, so in general, right, the steps are requirements . And then I can go into into the monitor the details, but it was requirements , first prototypes, first prototypes at the plant and then starting running those prototypes at scale and then doing the launch globally. So the this is very detailed in the automotive industry where you have certain quantities that go for prototyping a prototyping depends on the customer. But probably the most interesting part if you work in the automotive is that the requirements , uh, once they are set and they are they try to front load everything they actually respect very much the original requirements changes are calculated throughout the cycle as opposed to any other industry. I have been in several industries where the requirements keep changing almost until you start going into production. But like I said, important part in that was making sure your prototypes were up to, uh, to specify requirements and an interesting part of the process was, and this is not something that every system does is going and actually running your production line and making sure that the first parts that you have out of your production line are qualified to the same standards that your engineers are qualifying for, so you have your engineers, LA settings and then your production which is out of the production line, you have to compare the reliability results, which you always found out things happening, issues complications . So that was very interesting in the in the automotive.

Yeah, yeah. What was the timeline like to develop the system?

Typically is, uh, if you are just doing a changeover is about 16 months, but if you go for a whole new system where you have a brand new vehicle, it is about 3 years. So it depends, right, if you are putting whole new technology into that, it is about 303 years and a half.

Is the only reason they would change the system is because they are adding or updating technology, so they have to build a new system to adapt?

Yeah, correct. So as the radius started moving in technology, you started adding Bluetooth, you are starting adding all these USB connections and then Wi-fi. So those are only modules that you could you just keep adding to the radio. But now if you are talking about a whole new technology like we have or we are going to Start seeing now of talking to your radio for, uh, uh, giving orders then that would be, yeah, a brand new cycle that will take years.

Yeah. And is that a just a p c b update or do you have to update the entire system all the way to.

Yeah, whole the whole package, right? So so if you if the component does not fit, you have to work on the whole package around.

Yeah. And so if you were not working for a specific auto company, right, you were more of an OEM?

I was a Tier 1 supplier, which we were working with all Oems, mostly all all of them.

Okay. Okay. So that so when you develop a radio system, you are not developing an entire new system for let us say you did 1 for G. M. You are not doing a whole new system for forward, right?

That is correct.

Do you just are they identical or do you change out buttons or, you know, make it look a little different or?

Uh, so there is all these intellectual property that each 1 of them have now the common components , which are the Wi-fi modules, Bluetooth, every single module is just something that they shared in between. But the the packaging itself, yeah, is completely designed as per the different suppliers. Now, the other very interesting thing that might not be known is that every single radio on speakers, they are tuned per vehicle and that tuning. It is sort of the secret sauce that each supplier has, so you go you go into a Cadillac, it has certain tuning, right, it is certain sound as opposed to you go into. A pickup truck, it is going to have a another sound. So that is more of the after we finish the development . Now let us go and test how does this sound with customers so? So yeah, and there is actually a process that where they qualify as the quality of sound. Very subjective though, but interesting.

I can imagine. Yeah, so the did you just supply, like, vessels and buttons and everything or were you just plugging into, you know, kind of their bezel design or, you know, their what the consumer sees?

So we were plugging into the dashboard. So when we were working with dealer suppliers, we would bring our package or our cat package to the or the envelope to the meetings and make sure that, you know, the speakers, the hardness, nothing was interfering. Many, many times, we have requests to move the position of a screw, the position, or the actual envelope that we have because we were interfering with the air conditioning , or we might be interfering with. You know, parcel we are going to be heated and then we would cost a safety issue. So the interaction with suppliers that was very, very interesting too because you had certain radios that you had to to be aware of.

Sure. That is interesting. Tell us a little bit about the team involved, like how many people were involved in the development and what were their roles.

Sure. I mean, this is the whole pro development cycle. So we have engineers working on the requirements . We have manufacturing operations per se, which included supply chain quality we had of course all the design engineering and that was mechanical electrical software. We also had all the marketing people working on the communications . Once we were out, we would help on on marketing the product with the actual OEM. So it was the whole cycle every every single part of course sales right from the beginning. So we have. Engineering , sales, manufacturing , you name it. So every single part of the company was involved in that. And the reason is we were product development companies that happen to do manufacturing for for the OEM companies.

Mm hmm, interesting. What were some of the key milestones and achievements along the line that that you reached?

So when you go into product development , the masons are very well defined and it depends on the OEM, but it is reaching prototypes. Some of them, they call them electrical mules, then first parts in. Their vehicles, they usually have 1 to sometimes 3 prototype vehicles where you need to test your parks, so that was sort of a mass before going into launch the other K Marson was going through their audits as far as quantity. So we would have every single OEM visiting our plants in China and Mexico all over the world just to make sure that we had the quality and the quantity that they required. So that was the the biggest milestone was that. And then after that, sort of the last milestone was to pass their all the set of reliability testing that we had to do once we have passed that set of reliability and it was comparable to the initial testing, then you would say, okay, I completed the program, now you sort of handed that out to operations for scaling up.

Interesting. You were talking about that quantity, surely you did not have to pre build every radio system. Did they just like like look at your throughput and and they understood, okay, you can make x number per day and we have this many days and that is how they knew you were going to reach the quantity. How was that validated?

Dependent on the OEM. But e.g., a normal let us say speakers right. E.g., a normal speaker production is 600 to 700 speakers per shift in a manufacturing company, you would have to at least produce half a shift of parts to make sure that they reached the quantity and quality levels that they were requiring same for Radios, so. It was not cheap, it was not like, okay, I am going to build 5 radios. Please accept my radios. Know that there was a whole they call it run at rate. So you have to run and. You had to make sure that everything went okay, right, because 1 mistake it would show up in the in the end results and you would not be approved to supply.

Right. And so they are just validating your abilities to deliver ultimately.

Correct, right. And it is very specific to the automotive. You have to be running at rate, making sure that, yes, there is no problems.

Yeah, interesting. So with all the products we have helped design, there is always some kind of challenge that comes up. What was the biggest challenge that you and your team faced developing the system?

Most of the challenges that we had, I mean, you just mentioned a few of them were vibration testing. The other ones were passing the heat called cycles, especially for some when you have new components , you did not really know how they were going to behave at very high temperatures or very low temperatures . So the reliability part. And in some instances, we also needed to prove that the whole supply chain was able to produce parts. In other words, it was not only our production line we need to certify and sometimes bring the customer with us for critical parts. So that was a challenge right traveling around the world and making sure that we had all the parts. So those were never challenges, right? Reliability, testing, the design part. Of course, it has their own their own challenges. I mean, there is always going to be problems happening, especially in the first prototypes that we need to resolve.

Yeah, yeah. You have you have mentioned prototypes several times and in the world I live in, you know, we will build 3D printed prototypes all the time. I am guessing you are not talking about that kind of prototype when it comes to getting this thing up to production, it is. It walk us through that process a little bit like how does it differ from just 3D printing and then how does it differ from like what is going to be the production result?

So for those quantities, as you know, right, 3D printing, you can do just a few parks. When you are talking thousands to prove out your product, you have to go into soft tooling. So we would have a soft tooling for a while until we had to produce certain quantities, and then we would start calling what they call hard tooling, so the process was a go through your whole validation which of tooling, if everything is okay, then start coding for hard to it is actually an expensive process to, uh, to validate parts but. That was what was required when you are producing those those quantities. And I think the most important part is where you talk that your parts per million at the plank, whatever you were going to ship had to be single digit P Pms. So to achieve that. The amount of testing and assurance that you have to do has to be really outstanding to go into single P Pms right at the plans. So.

Explain that to me a little bit more because I do not understand it. You are saying your rate could only be so much or what is the the PP?

Yeah, so most of the requirements to be a normal supplier, uh, I do not know if they all of them but for most of the US suppliers, you had to be single p p m, which is just you are talking if you have if you are supplying 1 million parts and we were maybe 100,000 parts, 200,000 parts, you are talking about 5 defective parts found at the plant. And single digit, you have to be between 109. So 10 was already double digit. So you would be called out for a meeting of why your process was not in control now in order to achieve that quality. There is this whole background of testing that you have to do and background of, like I mentioned, run rate to to achieve those those levels. So so that is the relationship.

Okay. And do you have to achieve those levels from a prototype standpoint and then do it again for production or is it only production?

All the time. So if you saw like the first run rate which came from usually soft tooling, if you were not achieving those quality levels, you had to explain how you can achieve those quality levels and production was known that you have to be single digit and the reason for that is you do not get more business in 203 years if you cannot achieve that.

Right, interesting. So if you could go back in time and change 1 thing about developing the this the system, what would it be?

I wish there were more simulation tools when we started developing those systems as we have right now where you can model more of the how metals are going to behave, how stress is going to affect all those metals, how stress is going to affect all your elastomers or your plastics, that would be great because you just shrink your new product development cycle. Now we have those tools. Of course, they are not perfect, but more collaborative than when I started in automotive.

Yeah, yeah, interesting. Yeah, those tools are the what the prices are dramatically dropping for, the tools and the tools are getting better and better and yeah, I can not imagine. How much it would have made your life easier to have.

Yeah, absolutely. It was yeah, it is a tremendous help right now. The everything new that is coming out is unbelievable .

Okay. So shifting gears just a little bit. As we start to wrap up, what are some of the trends that you see emerging in product development ?

That is a very, very good question. There is some main trends that I am seeing is, of course, sustainability and how you are you are seeing most companies making sure that their products are sustainable for generations to come. So that was not something that was taken into account 20 years ago, right? It was there, but it was not as much as right now, but probably the biggest trend that I see is the use of artificial intelligence. That is going to significantly change the game in product development like we mentioned, right, you have all these tools, the tools will keep getting better, but you are going to get generative AI now for what they call text to part text to a call where. Your CNC code is going to be diminished, right, so the the amount of lambda you take to do that is going to be diminished, the amount of time that you take to prototype is going to be diminished. Uh, all of those things will happen + if you are 3D printing on all the additive designs that you have right now, maybe you are going to start seeing designs, more organic designs where you do not have all of these right angles with stresses, you might still you might see some of those in almost any industry if you can produce. A part that shows less stress or less points of failure than right angle parts or machine parts. It will it will certainly change how we see parts in the next 5 to 10 years. I do not I do not think it is going to be more than that. So I would say those are the main ones.

Yeah. I have already seen at least from a low volume standpoint, a lot of clients using 3D printers for production. And obviously you can do a lot of things that you can not do in an injection mold. So yeah, it is going to be really interesting to see how all of that that plays out.

Yeah, absolutely. I I do do quite a bit of a 3D printing with my daughter and just simple 3D printing is just unbelievable , you know, less than $1,000, 3D printer. What you can print nowadays is just mind blowing to to what we do so very interesting.

It is. Yeah, you like me, I am sure you kind of grew up around when prototyping was new, you know, s l machines were new and they were first when I was around. I think the company I mentioned that I worked for, they had 1 and I think they bought it for 1.5 million, you know Now you can get a desktop printer for 500 bucks. That is almost as good as that 1 was.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is just unbelievable , right? And once you start the thing, right, once you start or the metal printing is up to up to speed and the characteristics of that metal are and I think they are comparable now with with regular extrusion machines and all of that, that is going to be a game changer. If you get the speed and you get the right metals in there, it is just going to revolutionize the way we do manufacturing .

Yeah, I I was just reading the other day. I think it is been around for a while but I am just slow on picking up on it. I think it is Hoss. The the CNC machines. They have a metal 3D printer that prints straight into the machine and then they will come in and machine off, you know, the critical areas and, you know, so almost no scrap, no waste. Yeah, it is it is pretty amazing.

Yeah, and I think at the last e.g., I am not sure I think it was space X. They build 1 of the rockets with THREED printed with a circular 3D printer. So if you I mean, of course it is a long process, but if those metals can withstand that stress, um, there is no I mean, the new horizon was the horizon was here, now the new horizon is here, right? Is there is so many things that you can do nowadays.

Yeah, yeah. So reflecting on all the challenges and successes that you have encountered developing products, what words of wisdom would you share with somebody looking to make a significant impact in the product development world?

So. I guess 1 of the fair things and this is more on the human aspect of a new product development is making sure that you communicate properly throughout the whole chain of new product development . If you are developing requirements , everyone needs to be aware of what you are doing because if they are not, you you will regret it at some point. If you start designing your products without the voice of manufacturing or without the voice of maintenance , something will happen. So you have to be aware that it is not only engineering , it is a whole chain that needs to be face that is 1 and the other 1 is. Look at the new technologies that are coming out, do not try to reinvent the wheel in in terms of technologies , if they are out there, use them if you need to invest in new technology is fine, but for starting production right away. Look at what is out there, look at 3D printing, look at AI, what can you use that is proven and use it, right? So we are now change time, so you might as well just jump in the curve and getting the wave with that.

Yeah, yeah, very good. So this has been really good before we finish up though. Is there anything else you want to mention in regards to developing the the the radio system that you talked about or product development in general?

Well, I guess I have been in product development for the last 25 years in in many forms in engineering and manufacturing and program management , new product development , new technology development is probably 1 of the most for an engineer right is 1 of the most fulfilling things that you can do see something from nothing and then coming out with something that is in the market or maybe something that is saving lives or maybe something that is helping others. I I think it is a great, great career to get into, so whether you are in manufacturing , in engineering , mechanical, it does not really matter if you can actually use what you know to affect the world that we live in right now. It would be amazing, right? So that is that is my worst of wisdom for anyone in your product development .

Well, I totally agree. So, yeah, normally at this point I would ask where we could find the product, but I do not think we can find it online or anything like that anymore. So maybe it is in my old G M C or something.

Probably. Yeah.

Awesome. This has been this has been really fun. I appreciate you doing this, Art.

Thanks so much. Thanks for inviting me.

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EPISODE 19 - TED MONCURE

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EPISODE 17 - SCOTT LOSIK