In today’s automotive engineering environment, structural efficiency and development agility are no longer aspirational—they are mandatory. As global OEMs face mounting pressure to deliver modular vehicle platforms across diverse markets, the cross car beam has emerged as one of the most strategically significant components in upper body structural design.
The cross car beam, though hidden behind the dashboard, is central to how a vehicle performs under crash conditions, how it controls vibration and noise, how efficiently it can be manufactured, and how easily cabin systems can be integrated.
Goken was selected by a leading global automotive OEM to develop two completely distinct cross car beam structures for two different vehicle platforms, with concurrent delivery schedules and aggressive cost and weight targets.
What Is a Cross Car Beam?
The cross car beam is a transverse structural element mounted between the A-pillars of the vehicle, concealed within the instrument panel. It functions as the integration hub for the steering column, HVAC units, airbag modules, infotainment components, and lower dashboard assemblies. It also directly contributes to torsional rigidity, crash energy management, and the vehicle’s Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH) profile.
Unlike many chassis components, the cross car beam carries dual responsibility: it must perform as a load-bearing structure in crash events, while accommodating dense packaging constraints for comfort, safety, and infotainment systems.
Goken’s Approach
Globally Synchronized Engineering Execution
With time-to-market as critical as performance, Goken executed the dual-beam development through a globally synchronized engineering model. U.S. teams led the program and client interface, while India-based engineering centers handled core CAD development, design variation control, and simulation feedback integration.
Data exchange was continuous in a 24 hour cycle. Design deliverables were structured so that CAD output from one team seamlessly fed into validation loops in another geography, creating a 24-hour engineering cycle with no downtime.
Crash, NVH, and modal simulations were conducted in the client’s CAE environment, with Goken’s design team directly integrating CAE feedback in real time. This eliminated the lag of serial iteration, collapsing weeks of traditional delay into continuous, cross-functional progress.
Engineering with Manufacturability from Day One
From the first CAD iterations, supplier tooling tolerances, stamping constraints, and weld path viability were embedded into the modeling process. Supplier’s feedback drove bracket profiling, sheet metal formability, and part consolidation strategy. This engineering-manufacturing integration eliminated late-stage rework and created an efficient launch process with no surprises.
What Goken Delivered?
The impact of this program is best measured not just by metrics, but by transformation.
Goken successfully engineered two structurally distinct cross car beams that met all performance benchmarks for torsional stiffness, modal frequency targets, crash energy absorption, and NVH attenuation. Each beam was optimized for its unique vehicle platform—yet more than 60% of parts, including brackets, reinforcements, and mounting interfaces, were shared across both architectures.
This consolidation strategy directly enabled:
A 12% reduction in structural mass without any compromise to crashworthiness or vibration control.
Zero design rework post-FMVSS and CAE compliance validation.
Over 20% reduction in tooling and part investment through shared geometry and supplier tooling rationalization.
Compressed launch timelines thanks to a globally distributed 24-hour engineering workflow and early supplier alignment.
But beyond these figures, Goken delivered something more foundational: a replicable model for how modular structural components can be engineered with platform precision, manufacturing readiness in a global delivery model.
