CAESAR(TM) Comes To Detroit
11 June 1998
CAESAR(TM) Comes To Detroit WARRENDALE, Pa., June 10 -- Six Detroit companies have teamed
with the Society of Automotive Engineers, the U.S. Air Force and other
industry partners in the most comprehensive human-body measurement survey
every undertaken.
One of those companies, Magna Interior Systems, Livonia, Michigan, is host
this month to the second field site for CAESAR(TM), a cooperative research
international study of body shapes and sizes for people ages 18-65.
Other Detroit companies involved in the program include Ford Motor
Company, General Motors Corporation, Lear Corporation, Visteon, and Johnson
Controls, Inc. The study officially began in April at the site of another
industry partner, Nissan Research and Development, Inc. in Los Angeles,
California.
Researchers plan to take human measurements of more than 10,000 subjects
in the U.S. and Europe. At eight sites in the U.S., 4,000 people will be
measured and approximately 6,800 people at sites in the Netherlands and Italy.
The six Detroit companies are each sending 100 employee volunteers to the
Magna location on Interchange Drive. These subjects will don special gear and
have 80 temporary landmarks placed on their bodies. They will then enter the
whole body scanner, a measurement tool that uses a laser beam to record
thousands of body dimensions into a computerized database. The laser scan
gives researchers much more data more quickly and comprehensively than
previously could be accomplished with manual methods, such as tape measures or
calipers.
CAESAR(TM) stands for Civilian American and European Surface Anthropometry
Resource. It is a consortium of the U.S. Air Force and more than 20 companies
from the automotive, aerospace, and wearing apparel industries, coordinated by
SAE. The applications of this data will be used in designing more comfortable
and safe vehicle and aircraft interiors, to produce better-fitting clothing
for consumers, and better Air Force uniforms and jet pilot flight suits.
Detroit is the second stop in a planned eight-site program throughout the
U.S., to obtain an accurate geographic representation of various body shapes
and sizes. Later this year, CAESAR(TM) will move to Europe and begin scanning
subjects in the Netherlands and Italy. CAESAR(TM)'s first stop on its U.S.
tour was in Gardena, California at the Nissan Research and Development Center
in April and May.
Other ground vehicle companies who are members of CAESAR include Nissan
Motor Co., Ltd., Transport Canada, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, Caterpillar,
Inc, Navistar, Sears Manufacturing, Case Corporation, and Deere and Company.
Aerospace companies in the study include Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin.
Apparel companies participating in CAESAR(TM) are Jantzen Inc., Sara Lee Knit
Products, Lee Company, Levi Strauss and Vanity Fair Inc.
Magna Interior Systems Engineering is a division of Magna, a full service
supplier of interior and exterior body and chassis systems to every major
automaker in North America and Europe. Magna has over 41,000 employees in 148
manufacturing operations and 27 product development and engineering centers in
16 countries.
For further information on CAESAR(TM), contact Gary Lecuru, SAE
Cooperative Research Program (CRP) Sales at 248-649-0420, extension 3125, fax:
248-649-0425, email: glecuru@sae.org, or Gary Pollak, SAE CRP Manager at
724-772-7196, fax, 724-776-0243 or email: gary@sae.org.
SAE is a non-profit educational and scientific organization dedicated to
the advancement of mobility technology to better serve humanity. More than
74,000 engineers and scientists who are SAE members develop technical
information on all forms of self-propelled vehicles including automobiles,
trucks and buses, off-highway equipment, aircraft, aerospace vehicles, marine,
rail, and transit systems. SAE disseminates this information through its
meetings, books, technical papers, magazines, standards, reports, continuing
education programs, and electronic data bases.