The door system of an automotive vehicle plays a major role in a customer's perception of vehicle quality. As such, vehicle designers aspire to design robust door systems, which have desirable closing efforts, seal the passenger compartment from wind noise and water leaks, satisfy noise, vibration and harshness performance targets, and are durable. Current door system design relies heavily on "trial and error" testing and modification of physical hardware prototypes to achieve a robust design. Managing the often conflicting design goals of low closing effort, tight sealing and low wind noise frequently requires numerous iterations on prototype hardware to achieve the best possible design within the constraints of vehicle program timing and expense. The current hardware and testing based design procedure has at least two major disadvantages: first, the high cost of producing hardware prototypes; and, second, the extensive amount of time required to modify and test hardware prototypes.