Estimating economic impacts of new dimensional control technology applied to automobile body manufacturing

CONSAD analysts investigated the effects of the ATP-sponsored project on controlling dimensional variation in manufacturing (the “2mm project”). They looked first at the firm level to determine the technological changes that resulted from the project; the role played by the ATP; and the direct impacts on automobile production and maintenance costs. They then used macroeconomic interindustry modeling to project preliminary impacts on the national economy of adoption of the technology by the automobile industry. A challenge was to estimate the impacts based on preliminary and partial information characterizing industry experience. Some potential effects of the ATP-sponsored project were considered too uncertain at this early stage to attempt quantification and were omitted from the analysis. The results of the macroeconomic analysis provide a very preliminary projection of national economic impacts of this ATP-sponsored project. This paper is based on a study performed by CONSAD Research Corporation of a project funded by the Advanced Technology Program.