Visteon Reduces Delivery Times, Saves $13 Million with National Instruments Software and PXI Hardware
National Instruments (Nasdaq:NATI) today announced Visteon Corp. (NYSE:VC), one of the world’s largest suppliers of automotive systems and components, adopted NI products including PXI modular instruments, TestStand test management software, LabWindows/CVI and NI-IMAQ vision software to reduce delivery time, costs and floor space in manufacturing.
“We standardized on NI software, including NI TestStand, LabWindows/CVI and NI-IMAQ, and replaced traditional rack-and-stack hardware with NI modular hardware, including PXI, data acquisition, switching, image acquisition and modular instruments,” said Virgilio Salazar, Visteon R&D section supervisor. “With this new test system, we reduced our delivery time to our customers from eight to six weeks, with a record time of two weeks, due to software reuse. In addition, we saved more than $13 million and reduced floor space by more than 1,300 square feet.”
Visteon uses NI tools for manufacturing test of automotive consumer electronics for its major automotive manufacturer customers. Due to the flexibility of the PXI platform, Visteon adopted one software and hardware platform for a customized, expandable system. The company uses a variety of PXI modular instruments, including the NI PXI-5411 function generator, the NI PXI-2503 multiplexer/matrix relay switch and the NI PXI-4070 FlexDMM, along with the NI PXI-8420 RS232 module and the NI PXI-1411 image acquisition module, to perform radio parametric testing, radio auto alignment testing and climate control parametric testing. The flexibility of the platform gives Visteon the tools required to test a wide range of consumer electronics applications with a single modular platform.
Using flexible NI software, Visteon quickly developed high-level application drivers in LabWindows/CVI. With the integration of LabWindows/CVI and NI TestStand, the company developed test sequences for different automotive components and had time to add instrument diagnostics and control tools to its proprietary software. NI software gave Visteon the ability to reduce normal delivery time due to software reuse.
About PXI
PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI) is an open specification governed by the PXI Systems Alliance ( www.pxisa.org ) that defines a rugged, CompactPCI-based platform optimized for test, measurement and control. PXI products are compatible with the CompactPCI industrial computer standard that is supported by more than 60 member companies and more than 1,000 products. PXI offers additional features such as environmental specifications, standardized software and built-in timing and synchronization.
About National Instruments
National Instruments ( www.ni.com ) is a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation — a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging the PC and its related technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs through easy-to-integrate software, such as the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment, and modular hardware, such as PXI modules for data acquisition, instrument control and machine vision. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 3,400 employees and direct operations in approximately 40 countries. In 2004, the company sold products to more than 25,000 companies in 90 countries. For the past six years, FORTUNE magazine named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.
CVI, FlexDMM, LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI, NI-IMAQ, NI TestStand and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.
