44 years ago, SEAT made a decision that would change its future forever. The company decided to create its own Technical Centre, with the idea eventually becoming a reality in 1975.

The Technical Centre was conceived with the aim of creating the brand’s own identity and style and incorporating new technology into the design of its models.

This year, the SEAT Technical Centre (CTS) celebrates its 40th Anniversary. The centre marked a “before and after” for the company and for the automotive industry in Spain as a whole. Since the beginning, the CTS has shaped SEAT’s design language and has become the central hub of the company. It currently stands as the largest investor in R&D in Spain. The company says it has invested 1.4 billion euros in this area over the last five years.

The CTS started working in 1975 in a 130,000 m2 area with a workforce of 211 employees. Today the CTS is located in a 200,000 m2 area and has more than 900 designers, engineers and technicians; this number is expected to reach around 1,000 by the end of this year.

Throughout its 40 year history the CTS has been constantly growing and evolving. It has not just expanded its facilities, but the workforce has also quadrupled and other centres and buildings have sprung up in the surrounding area. The most important of these is the Martorell factory, inaugurated in 1993, which currently produces 2,100 units daily. SEAT now sells its cars in 75 countries.

The CTS is responsible for creating the company’s most well-known vehicles such as the Leon, Ibiza, Toledo, and Alhambra, among others. All of these models follow a common development process.

The CTS has also developed numerous concept cars, which have either a futuristic style or incorporate innovations compared to previous models. The first ever concept car designed by the company was the Ibiza Cabrio, which was unveiled back in 1986. Its latest design study – the 20V20 SUV – was revealed earlier this year at the Geneva motor show, being described by company boss Jürgen Stackmann as “the lighthouse for our development for the coming five-year period”.

The Technical Centre makes SEAT the only company in Spain’s automotive sector that designs, develops, manufactures and markets its own cars.

The process of creating a car, from the initial idea to the mass-production, follows some specific phases: Design Process, Package & Ergonomy, Design Feasibility, 3D Data Generation / Digital Mockup (DMU), Simulation, Prototypes and Validation.

The development of a model starts with the Design Process phase in the SEAT Design Centre. Once the product to be developed is defined, the designers start the creative work. In this stage their inspiration and creativity prevail over other aspects, as they aim to create a balance between technology, design, creativity and functionality.

In parallel to this phase, the technical department analyses the designers’ work, revise the body and the interior; they check the ergonomics and the technical feasibility and they establish the future applicability of the project. Once the model’s development is defined, architectural coherence is analysed. In this phase, the aerodynamics, rigidity and the effectiveness of the chassis are also studied, as well as the cooling and air conditioning, among other things.

Before turning the virtual model into a physical one, the CTS uses virtual reality, augmented reality and assembly (Digital Mockup or DMU) tools. The Digital Mockup is said to be a key element in the development of the brand’s vehicles as it allows testing via simulation in order to optimise the model. Using DMU technology, the CTS carries out the first static and dynamic behaviour simulations, both for individual components and the complete model, and submits these to virtual crash-tests and other safety tests.

Finally, before mass-producing and commercialising the vehicle, the CTS ensures the viability of the project in the validation phase. In this stage, the vehicle is subjected to multiple tests and experiments.

Being the main company in the Spanish automotive sector, SEAT currently represents around 1% of Spanish GDP and 4% of Catalan GDP. SEAT claims many small and medium companies depend on its production, which directly or indirectly, employs around 70,000 people.

Source: SEAT

Tags: CAD, car design, R&D, SEAT, SEAT Design Centre, SEAT Technical Centre, Volkswagen Group