Citroën's Lightweight Seat Structure Achieves High Levels of 'Perceived Quality'

AUTO CENTRAL – January 22, 2010: A lightweight seat structure offering a 2.2kg reduction in weight and increased levels of ‘perceived quality’ has been launched in Citroën’s new C3. Using ARPRO allowed engineers to replace a heavy and costly steel structure with a strong, light and recyclable material. Material properties such as deformation resilience and moulding accuracy enabled Citroën to achieve improved alignment with visual design features such as leather stitching to enhance the customer’s experience with the car.

“Our partnership with Citroën started in 2005,” says Paul Compton, JSP’s President and Chief Executive Officer – Europe. “The objective was to create a lighter seat that could achieve excellent crash test results.” Right from the start, ARPRO offered the team savings in time and cost. “In prototype form, ARPRO reacts in the same way as mass produced components. This allowed us to create applicable parts quickly and without tooling,” adds Compton. “For a very small investment and within a short timeframe, we were able to validate and prove the concept in a real crash test. This gave the programme engineers the confidence to back the project for mass production.”

ARPRO is strong and resilient enough to replace the metal anti-submarining ramp (there to help retain rear-seat passengers in their seats in the event of vehicle collision), contributing to a simpler and lighter vehicle structure. Compared to the previous generation C3 rear seat, switching to ARPRO provided Citroën with a metal weight reduction of 1.79kg. The balance of the saving is achieved through lower polyurethane content and a simpler fastening system, the latter serves to lower the assembly cost.

Perceived quality, or ‘what the customers sense on first contact’ has also been improved with the new seat design. “The consistency of the moulded parts and simpler assembly process supported Citroen’s desire to raise ‘perceived quality’ levels,” claims Compton. “The results achieved are highly impressive and demonstrate another area ARPRO can support the aspirations of OEMs.”

The Citroën C3 project is the latest example of how ARPRO is helping OEMs and Tier One suppliers achieve an increasing requirement for lower weight components. It follows on from other seating projects with Volvo and Daimler and applications for other leading global OEMs such as interior trim, sun visors and impact protection products.

JSP recently completed a study to highlight the environmental benefits of using lightweight seating cores. Calculating a comparative CO2 (global warming potential) figure for the production of an ARPRO seat core, the results show that ARPRO delivers an environmental benefit twelve times that of its impact. Assuming a vehicle lifetime of 100,000km, ARPRO can enable a reduction in CO2 of 2.65g/km.