Best in Automotive Innovation: Process/Assembly/Enabling Technologies Category

The Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) has unveiled the finalists of its 52nd annual Automotive Innovation Awards. The Process/Assembly/Enabling Technologies category features promising entries from GM, Toyota, and Ford. The Toyota entry is profiled below. The winners will be revealed on Nov. 8, 2023, during the awards gala. 

Seat Module

This patented injection molded module for seats incorporates temporary and permanent holding features to control cables and dramatically reduce both components and labor at the seat manufacturer. Cables are delivered to the Tier 1 pre-routed on the module plate, eliminating the brackets, cable ties, and clips typically used to control seat cables and greatly reducing labor for assembly operators. The module also reduces rework and scrap caused by cable misalignments. Additionally, lever pull effort for consumers is reduced, since direct cable routing enables the use of shorter cables.