Book excerpt: Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been widely implemented by the automotive industry as a productivity tool for design engineers to reduce both development time and cost. This essential work serves as a guide for FEA as a design tool and addresses the specific needs of design engineers to improve productivity. It provides a clear presentation that will help practitioners to avoid mistakes. Easy to use examples of FEA fundamentals are clearly presented that can be simply applied during the product development process. The FEA process is fully explored in this fundamental and practical approach that includes: • Understanding FEA basics • Commonly used modeling techniques • Application of FEA in the design process • Fundamental errors and their effect on the quality of results • Hands-on simple and informative exercises This indispensable guide provides design engineers with proven methods to analyze their own work while it is still in the form of easily modifiable CAD models. Simple and informative exercises provide examples for improving the process to deliver quick turnaround times and prompt implementation.