The RD8 Engineering Design Tool was used to evaluate and improve the design of a center console ventilation unit. By combining Kinematics and Tolerance analysis, critical design risks were identified early in development.

The RD8 tool revealed overconstraints in the assembly, affecting both the front and rear airflow vanes. Using the kinematic canvas, these overconstraints were clearly identified, highlighting potential alignment and functional risks due to variation. To assess their impact, several tolerance stacks were calculated.  

Alignment between the rear wings and the centre wing is critical to product performance. The existing design required 14 parameters to define the alignment between each of the rear wings and the centre wing, resulting in only 68% successful alignment. Repeating this analysis for each wing increased complexity and introduced additional failure modes.

With a clear understanding of the root causes, interfaces were redesigned to ensure correct kinematics, reduce tolerance stacks, and simplify the overall concept. The improved design was reevaluated in RD8 to confirm robust performance, lowering the kinematic score from 15 to 4.