2. Should Ford have included its suppliers’ suppliers as well? The development of the 1.6 Zeta engine by Ford was one of its most important design projects for years. Like any engine design, it was a huge and complex task. Indeed, each part of the engine needed to go through all the stages of the ‘concept through to market’ design activity.

Take, for example, the air intake manifold. This plays a particularly important role in the engine because it re-circulates exhaust gases from the engine, re-burning some of them and thus reducing the overall emission levels from the engine.

In the Zeta engine, the manifold (unusually) is made not from metal but from a glass-reinforced nylon resin. The advantages of using this material include its strength, impact resistance, heat resistance and ease of processing. However, there were many design problems to sort out, including noise and vibration, the dimensional stability of the product and the ability of the material to stand up to the very high temperatures involved.