Category

Automotive

Aug 17

To Reuse or Not To Reuse Parts, That is the Question

By Automotive, Design Reuse, Manufacturing, PLM One Comment

Design Reuse

For years I have been critical of the automotive industry and its overzealous and careless tendency to design new parts instead of reusing existing designs, inventory parts and suppliers.  The Rationale to resist the temptation to innovate and reuse tried and proven parts is broad and multifaceted. Among the chief arguments:

  • Accelerate time to market and reduce the number and severity of ECOs
  • Reuse tooling and manufacturing processes
  • Improve quality and have better estimation of volume manufacturing ramp up, service load and warranty costs
  • Reduce the need to recreate work instructions, remove and replace procedures and related documentation
  • Lower manufacturing and final product cost
  • Reduce inventory and related costs

A useful way to look at this is that in addition to the benefits of reusing a physical commodity, design reuse promotes knowledge reuse, which has broader and longer lasting benefits.

The argument for design and part reuse gets a bit more involved when we look beyond small parts and subassemblies, which the average consumer doesn’t care about. What about systems that represent the brand identity, such as the engine or transmission? Do consumers know and care whether an engine is exclusive to the brand? How does this knowledge influence buying decisions?

A recent study by Automotive News of auto dealers offers an interesting perspective on the topic. The study indicates that consumers are split almost evenly about how they feel about the brand exclusivity of the engine in the car they’re shopping for and how this knowledge influences their busying decision.

Interestingly, according to the study, consumers care much more about the brand exclusivity of the transmission: more than 50% of consumers now and care whether the car’s transmission is exclusive to that brand.

An even more surprising finding, which, quite frankly, make me somewhat leery about the reliability of this very small (n= 169) study, is that 71% of consumers know and care whether the axles are exclusive to that brand. Or, at least, this is what auto dealers believe.

For some reason, the study did not ask about common car chassis that might have a stronger impact on consumer decisions, because it makes it easier to pitch one brand against the other. A good example is Volkswagen’s A4 platform that is used in a range of vehicles from the luxury sporty Audi TT to the lower end SEAT and Skoda. While most consumers are not aware of the pervasive use common platforms, will they change their mind if they did?

The fidelity of the study’s findings aside, it’s clear that line executives and designers face a dilemma: how far can they reuse parts and systems before they start diluting the brand identity. But finding the right mix of model-exclusive and common design, especially lower level assemblies and parts, is an important step in improving operations while maintain brand’s identity and integrity.

Jul 09

Closing The Service Knowledge Gap

By Automotive, Field Service, Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) One Comment

The Growing Service Knowledge Gap

Maintaining, servicing and repairing complex vehicle systems is a growing challenge for OEMs of automotive and off-highway equipment. Multiple research studies I conducted in the automotive and off-highway industries demonstrate the magnitude of the problem:

  • Typically, repair shops are able to fix about 80% of the cars during the first customer visit. While about third of all auto dealerships manage a respectable first time fix (FTF) rate of 90%, nearly 20% of dealership manage a disappointing FTF of less than 70%.
  • When OEMs audit repair activities for warranty reimbursement and quality assessment, they are unable to detect a failure in 37% of replaced parts and mark them as “no fault found” (NFF).

Poor service performance levies significant financial and logistics burden on OEMs, tarnishes the brand image and damage customer loyalty.

An obvious observation is that the increase in vehicle technology complexity, and, in particular, electric powertrains, advanced infotainment systems and telematics, are the prime contributors to service difficulties. We can only expect dealership technicians to face similar, if not greater, obstacles handling the upcoming wave of connected car technologies.

While new vehicle technologies can certainly pose significant hurdles to delivering effective, efficient and safe service, engineers and service planners should bear in mind additional operational issues that further lessen the capacity of service organizations to deliver excellent service:

  • Accelerated time to market of new products and subsystems, and late release of software-based components reduce the organization’s ability to learn, author relevant service information, and conduct effective training.
  • The increase in the number of product variants and frequent software updates, coupled with increase in reliability, reduce the hands-on experience of service technicians and increase their reliance on high quality training and service information.
  • The industry, as a whole, is experiencing knowledge attrition and skill shortage caused by the gradual retirement of an aging workforce and difficulties attracting, training and retaining skilled technicians.

Closing the Chronic Service Knowledge Gap

To improve service, product companies should view service lifecycle management (SLM) not as a mere tool to manage service transactions, but rather as a strategy to manage service knowledge and close the chronic knowledge gap. Key action to consider:

Elaina Farnsworth, the CEO of Mobile Comply, offers the following perspective in a Q&A session the company shared with me:

Q: Since safety is our top priority, and V2V technology represents the next great advance in saving lives, how will we prepare our workforce?

A: Through training and collaboration with OEMs, Tier I and Tier II suppliers. Since NHTSA released that the car is a safer place if it’s connected, it’s inevitable that some of the access from the telematics systems will need to be opened up to communicate relative to safety. That said, the telematics community needs to be astutely aware of what this change looks like and vulnerabilities need to be opened up when the car becomes truly connected.

Q: What is your projection of the affect that mobility will have on various industries?

A: Technology platforms are shifting and communication channels are being reinvented. Connected Vehicle is now a market that is projected to reach $130 billion by 2019. By 2022, there will be 1.8 million automotive connections worldwide. Industry sectors not only include automotive, but also insurers, financial institutions, health, mobile and nomadic devices, application developers, telecommunications, analytics companies and much more.

Q: What are the biggest disconnects in this new wave of Connected Vehicle?

A: There are many innovations coming from both the IT and the automotive industries to get our vehicles more connected- to our Smartphones, to other cars, and to traffic and roads. The challenge is that IT and Engineering departments are focusing on two different things and speaking two different languages. There are specific design elements and government requirements that must be factored into each new idea.

Q: How can we prepare the current workforce and the upcoming workforce for this rapidly changing technology?

A: We can offer training and certifications. Our newly launched Connected Vehicle Professional Certification covers all elements of the Connected Vehicle- from passive safety to mobility to information and entertainment, and why it is necessary to factor all aspects before and during design of a vehicle.

 

Jul 06
Car Repair

Can Serviceability Standards Improve The Bottom Line?

By Automotive, Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) No Comments

The Cost of Poor Service

Maintaining, servicing and repairing complex vehicle systems is a growing challenge. Much has been written on service metrics and operational performance, but it’s worthwhile to pause to highlight few figures to understand the impact that service (poor service, that is) has on the bottom line. The following data are from multiple research studies I conducted in automotive and aerospace repair operations:

  • Typically, auto repair shops are able to fix about 80% of the cars during the first customer visit. While about third of the dealerships are able to deliver better than 90% first time fix (FTF) rate, nearly 20% of all dealership manage only abysmal FTF of less than 70%.
  • When repairs activities are audited by the OEM for warranty reimbursement and quality assessment, 37% of replaced parts do not exhibit any problem and are identified as “no fault found” (NFF).
  • In commercial aviation, approximately 40% of mechanical parts and 60% of avionics parts are classified as NFF.

Read More

Jul 05

Can Driverless Cars Make Ethical Decisions?

By Automotive, Autonomous, Connected, Electric, Shared Vehicles 2 Comments

Fully autonomous driverless cars may be in the future, but the vision is getting more vivid by the day. Great progress is being made in demonstrating autonomous car capabilities and enacting legislation to allow road testing, improving autonomous driving capabilities and inspire consumer confidence and acceptance of new mobility models.

But before autonomous cars are available at your local dealership or can be summoned from your smartphone app, there’s a number of significant hurdles that industry and governments need to overcome.  The purpose of this short article is not to contest the viability of autonomous cars, but rather to highlight some of the interesting and difficult problems engineers, legislatures, and ethicists (yes, ethicists; this is not a typo) are working on.

Human Behavior and Interaction

Mary Bara, GM’s CEOs said in a recent interview:  “I can put autonomous car out now, but the streets of New York are a great example [of the challenges]: the jogger, the dog, the baby carriage.” Recognizing static obstacles and even humans and small animals crossing the road is likely to improve considerably in the near future.

However, recognizing and responding to the complex and tacit interaction between drivers, cyclists and pedestrians will be much more difficult. For example, a police officer signaling for traffic to stop to allow pedestrian to cross the street. A driverless car doesn’t recognize the signal and proceeds through a green light but is unable to stop in time when the pedestrian steps into its path.

Weather

Daytime driving in the perfectly clear weather of California and Nevada doesn’t represent the average conditions autonomous vehicles will face in most other regions. Cars will have to be able to follow traffic lanes in snow covered roads, evade ice patches and potholes (I live in Boston!), and quickly recover when blinded by the sun.

Ethics

Making the right choice when there are conflicting objectives and restrictions is extremely difficult for advanced artificial intelligence based systems. The autonomous driving system is designed to obey the traffic rules, but will it be able to “break the law” to avoid hitting a pedestrian?

In fact, even if driverless cars eventually do possess advanced “moral judgment”, will all autonomous cars made by highly competitive OEMs employ identical decision “ethics” and collision avoidance strategies, or are they likely to make opposing decisions and stop in their track instead of evading each other?

Law and Liability

Issues surrounding accountability for damage caused by an autonomous and possibly even driver-assistant driving are only beginning to emerge. For instance, if a car’s software performed as advertised, but failed to prevent an accident, is the carmaker responsible for the damage?  Will we see a wave of drivers arguing that the car’s software failed to provide adequate lane departure or blind spot warning?

As GM’s Bara acknowledged: “[it’s a] huge responsibility whether you are steering or not.”

Cost and Critical Mass

Even as technology improves and consumer doubts eventually abate, the additional cost of sensor and computing technologies may prevent autonomous cars from being affordable by the mainstream for a long time. Of course, the cost will improve dramatically when autonomous cars enter volume production, but this will not happen until consumer acceptance is high enough.

This is a chicken-and-egg problem because the full potential of autonomous vehicles, and connected cars in general, will not be realized until the number of such vehicles reaches a critical mass. But reaching this point will require that enough consumers buy into advanced connected car and autonomous driving technologies.

Jul 05

Electric Vehicles for Everyone, Not Just the Elite

By Automotive, Autonomous, Connected, Electric, Shared Vehicles No Comments

Mary Bara, GM’s CEO, recently attended her 25th reunion at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. In a very insightful article and interview for LinkedIn, she openly discusses GM’s strategy and plans for connected cars, autonomous vehicles and electric cars. Here is what I think Ms. Bara got right, and where, I believe, GM has not quite caught up with the current trends in the consumer market.

Autonomous Vehicles

Ms. Bara believes “the transformations in the coming decade must be bold and focused”, but emphasizes that any success of autonomous vehicles pivots not only on advanced technology, much of which is already available in GM cars, but also on recognizing the critical role of infrastructure, technology and business ecosystem, and, of course, consumer acceptance.

GM “can put autonomous car out now, but the streets of New York are a great example [of challenges]: the jogger, the dog, the baby carriage” (see Driverless Cars Roadblocks.) Ms. Bara points out that broad market adoption depends on understanding and resolving difficult questions concerning drivers (and OEMs) responsibility: “[it’s a] huge responsibility whether you are steering or not.”

Ms. Bara intends to drive GM to lead rather than follow in developing autonomous car technologies, but, in contrast to “disruptive” companies like Google, she underscores the importance of continuous learning and step-wise improvement, and making steady progress while “pulling people along.”

Electric Vehicles

GM’s goal is to build “electric vehicles for everyone, not just the elite.” GM hopes the Chevrolet Bolt EV, which is supposed to be able to travel 200 miles on a single charge for a price tag of about $30,000, will help change consumers’ attitude towards EVs. Recently, GM announced new pricing of the 2016 Volt: $34,000 for the base LT model.

My take

Ms. Bara has a very sober view of the consumer market and will not predict when EVs might outnumber IC-propelled cars: “customers are very rational.” This is likely to prove  a more pragmatic and successful approach to the EV market than some of her predecessors who seemed to rely on luxury models such as the Cadillac ELR plug-in hybrid to compete head to head against Tesla (since its introduction in 2013, ELR sales have yet to reach 1,500 units.) Instead, GM should leverage its strengths in global manufacturing and supply chain to build and service cost-effective mainstream products in multiple markets.

GM, like other major OEMs, is targeting the mainstream population, where, as many point out repeatedly, high vehicle cost and range anxiety keep most customers away from electric vehicles. Consumer trepidation concerning the viability and safety of driverless cars and autonomous driving is going to prove an even greater hurdle.

Industry should invest more in launching vehicles that operate in a defined—and therefore easier and safer to operate—spaces, such as a large company campus, airport inter-terminal and rental car transfer, or limited range delivery service. These will serve to improve autonomous driving technologies, lower the cost of electric powertrain components, and boost the trust and acceptance of wavering consumers.

Connected Cars

Connected cars services is one area GM doesn’t seem to be aligned with the consumer market, perhaps because of OnStar’s long presence (twenty years!) in the space. When discussing plans for next generation connected cars, Ms. Bara talks about wireless connectivity, 4GL and LTE standards, and smartphone integration. And while she emphasizes “putting the customer at the center of everything we do”, the OnStar model puts the vehicle’s identification number (VIN) in the center of the connected car universe, as do most other OEMs telematic and connected services products.

My Take

One of the fundamental principles of connected car services is the need to maintain a persistent mobile digital identity. Consumers living the always-connected lifestyle expect continuous access to personalized information and services from service and content providers of their choice, accessed and managed from their smartphones, and not restricted by the VIN of the vehicle they happen to be driving. Moreover, consumers do not want to pay the carmaker for services and data they already purchased and access using their smartphone, services that are of higher quality, faster and cheaper than those offered by the OEM.

GM should rethink the outdated OnStar model and place the consumers—drivers and passengers—in the center. This transition should be accompanied by the development of an active ecosystem of services and content providers.

Finally, it’s refreshing to see the growing recognition by Detroit automakers of the value of outside innovation, whether from OEM R&D centers in Silicon Valley or elsewhere (GM operates multiple research centers in the U.S. and around the world.) Presently, these centers seem to focus on core technologies, but can also serve as thinking tanks to improve the culture of customer centricity Ms. Bara wants to inspire at GM.