Working for FARO® (specifically in the Detroit area), I noticed that several companies are interested in creating and running a program to successfully check H-points (or Hip Points) on seats. The location of the H-Point allows automotive designers to improve seating comfort predicting where the average occupant sits relative to the top of the car or getting in/out of the car. Most seats are checked with a standardized adjustable dummy (Oscar) designed to represent the most common occupants.
Most companies are checking several seats a day. Creating an H-Point program will ensure that you are checking all seats in the same manner, eliminating some human errors, and standardizing work. Keep in mind good measurement practices, come up with a measurement plan, and maintain it.
Here are 10 easy steps to standardize an H-Point program.
Steps to creating H-Point Program
- Fire up your software of choice (FARO® CAM2® Measure 10.3)
- Ensure that your device is measuring accurately (compensate the unit).
- Define the locations of your tooling balls, during this step I would recommend renaming your features to the actual location in the car. For example: front driver side, rear driver side or front passenger side, to separate the different locations of the tooling balls.
- Locate at least three point reducible features and establish names.
- Input the x,y,z location of each reference point.
- Input the diameter of each reference point.
Note: You should have created at least 3 point reducible nominal features.
- Add readings to each nominal feature you created. During this step, it is important to measure the correct tooling balls (this is why naming the nominal features is important).
- Use alignment options to match your coordinate systems (in CAM2 Measure 10, it is an iterative alignment option).
Note: You are now aligned with the car.
- Now we can find the H-Point. Setting up Oscar, measure the plane and circle on the outboard and inboard side (right and left side) of his body.
- Create a midpoint between the outboard and inboard circles, establishing Oscar’s H-Point in the seat you are currently testing.
- Entering the properties or the information of the H-point, you can adjust the tolerance zone and enter the nominal information (x,y,z location).
- Report your findings.
- Standardize by creating a program.