It really, really depends. The “Hey, I’ve got a great idea!” is really misleading. The “idea” is really the product of marketing, designers, engineers, study groups, and so in. The “great idea” can be a product of six months or sixty years, in that so much is progressive rather than revolutionary. That is, the basics never change, but you add and change things gradually through the years. Let’s leave this as a big grey area, then. Let’s say that marketing has decided on a need for a particular segment, and it’ll be fulfilled by the Clydesdale. We’ve identified key markets, types of engines, basic body shell, basic options and appointments, and probably have at least one clay model. We’re ready to begin asking ourselves the question, “can we manufacture it?” Up to this point, remember, there’s no general rule of how long it’s taken to get here. Our “official” strategy is to start all of this 40 months prior to the first publicly salable unit.
Now things get easier to determine, and all companies have to go through the same processes, and some are more efficient than others. Put the design into systems engineers can understand. Product design will worry about material sourcing and costs. Manufacturing engineering will determine how feasible a product is to build, and how much it will cost to build. Marketing will decide how many it can sell. The results of all of this will be decided, and if it’s acceptable, a program approval is given. Now, one to six months will have taken place.
At this point, the final product details can be ironed out, and tool building companies can build tools or plan kits for existing tools. Another three to six months will have taken place. If you’ve already got a tooling budget, you can place orders for long lead time items during this process (robots, conveyors, and other systems). Otherwise…
Waiting for long lead time items can chew into your schedule. Granted, other productive activities can take place during this time, but in reality, the time between tooling design and the beginning of integration will be two to three months.
Integration (building the tooling at tooling companies’ facilities) can take one to three months. Unless it’s a bunch of kits, you’re essentially building the entire factory ahead of time at the integrator. Once the tooling is validated and working, it’s torn down, packaged, and shipped to the manufactory.
Assuming there’s some place to build the new tools or sufficient downtime to upgrade kits, you can go from a complete greenfield site to producing a salable vehicle within two months, although it’s generally longer, say, six months.
In the end, once you’ve established a complete package concept, you could conceivably do it in 9 months or so, but only if you’re very lucky, have excellent suppliers, and do everything perfectly the first time. Our official “world class” strategy is 18 months from program approval until the first publicly salable unit.