powertrain engineering adapted to suit this requirement. If the development of components – and most importantly of modules and systems – is not merely done OEM-specifically but beyond the boundaries of OEMs, the complexity will increase even further,” Helfried Sorger pointed out. At the moment, AVL is conducting such turnkey projects successfully for OEMs in Germany, Japan and the U.S. 1 2 F O C U S ›› WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT, WE WILL BE TAKING CHARGE OF SERIES DEVELOPMENT OF POWERTRAIN ELEMENTS, I.E. EVERYTHING FROM ENGINE TO TRANSMISSION TO BATTERIES. ‹‹ HELFRIED SORGER, Head of Base Powertrain Development HIGH-LEVEL EXPERTISE AND EXTENSIVE RESOURCES To conduct large-scale turn-key projects for OEMs, it requires great expertise, extensive staff resources and suitable infrastructure. The activities carried out by AVL personnel within the scope of a base powertrain series development project for an OEM range from design and simulation to mechanical development and mechanical validation. AVL additionally takes care of preparing the technical specifications for the suppliers, in other words it takes charge of the entire technical supplier management. Integral part of the AVL team are the plant & production engineering experts who address Design-to- Cost, Design-to-Manufacturing and Design-to-Assembly issues at a very early stage. “In this respect, AVL can harness its full technical and personnel strengths, because the staff requirements for a major base-powertrain series development may reach 100 employees or more to cover the entire process chain. On top of that, you need the necessary testing systems close to the customer. AVL already has a large number of engineering and test centers, and its network is undergoing continuous expansion. In Stuttgart, a new Tech Center is being erected right now. It’s expected to go into full operation in early 2016. This new location is going to make it even easier for us to take care of all other activities of our customers, too, besides turn-key projects,” Helfried Sorger said. CUSTOMER-SPECIFIC PROJECT TEAMS AND A NEW SPECIALIST FIELD FOR AVL Though powertrain component series development at major OEMs usually undergoes similar procedures, there are still individual process steps and employed methods or tools that vary. To address the customer’s exact specifications, AVL puts together customer-specific project teams. These employees take care of projects for certain customers on a continual basis, with the result that the team is perfectly familiar with the respective OEM’s processes. The close interaction between AVL and the OEM helps to avoid time delays in new projects, for example, that might be caused by start-up difficulties. In response to the new growth area, AVL has modified its organizational structure by establishing a new specialist field for “Simultaneous Engineering”. In terms of interdisciplinarity, this new specialist field with
focus_2014_1_E_Web
To see the actual publication please follow the link above