Reliability and flexibility – how automotive suppliers are reacting to ever shorter development cycles

Martin, please tell us a bit about yourself, both on a personal level and professionally!

I’m 46 and married with two sons, aged 9 and 12. In my spare time, I try to keep fit by doing sport and if there’s time, I like to do a few laps on my motorbike. My professional career started with a technical apprenticeship with the Deutsche Bahn, followed by further training to become a technician. I have been working for MD ELEKTRONIK since 2007, firstly in process development and then since 2021, in the area of research and development, or more precisely, in technical product management.

My technical background and experience in production help me assess new demands and customer requirements at an early stage and look at how to implement them in production.

I really appreciate the exchanges and discussions in this context as you always get an insight into the future plans of the sector and the direction in which the mobility of the future is taking us.

The automotive industry is becoming increasingly fast-moving, with ever shorter development cycles. What are the reasons for this development?

The main driver of this development is undoubtedly customer preferences which are changing ever more rapidly and are affected in particular by the digital transformation. Customers are increasingly demanding more sustainable, flexible and networked mobility solutions and this is reflected, for example, in the growing interest in self-driving vehicles, Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) and vehicle subscription models. The need to remain competitive in an increasingly networked ecosystem is prompting the automotive industry to engage in partnerships with technology companies, and to increasingly adapt to their short development cycles. Regulatory requirements, particularly in the area of emissions protection and vehicle safety, are also putting increasing pressure on the automotive industry to accelerate its development processes.

What challenges does this acceleration pose for automotive suppliers and how are these challenges being tackled?

The need to rapidly develop and deliver a variety of customer-specific solutions requires suppliers to make significant investments in research and development as well as in more agile and more flexible processes and production procedures. The development of vehicle series is increasingly relying on digitalized processes e.g. with integrated software solutions to develop vehicles or digital simulations. The series business must be able to react quickly to last minute changes. This means that suppliers too must digitalize their processes. Strengthening the resilience of the supply chain is another central component required to meet the increasingly dynamic requirements of the automotive industry. Unforeseeable collapses in supply e.g. due to acts of God (force majeure) present a huge problem when it comes to tight schedules. Second suppliers and a stronger regional concentration of supply chains or a restructuring of global production networks are gaining in importance here. In addition to the need to become ever faster, certain factors are also working against the acceleration of development cycles. For example, due to the lack of standardization, there are different requirements in the area of high-frequency connection systems for the same application in Europe and America. This increases the diversity of variants and slows development down. The patent situation must always be taken into account too and does not make rapid development easy.

What concrete measures is MD taking to ensure that it can offer the necessary reliability and flexibility in the area of cable assembly?

Our identity as a development partner is the underlying basis of everything. MD deliberately focuses on customer proximity. For example, we provide customers with support already during the control unit development stage. This makes it possible to identify trends early on and therefore enables us to be prepared for upcoming innovations. In contrast to pure assemblers, MD has its own product development department, worldwide accredited test laboratories and also develops and produces its own partially and fully-automated production systems. In time-critical projects and in the event of unforeseeable changes, the fact that we have our own systems enables us to make huge savings in terms of coordinating efforts with external partners, and gives us the necessary flexibility and independence. All processes can be operated in parallel, for example, we can replace modules on fully automated systems while quickly adjusting product components. This now even means that MD is able to compensate for supply disruptions by offering its own first source alternative products. MD continuously invests in these capacities to optimally prepare its production sites and development departments around the world so that we can meet the challenges of the future.

Martin, many thanks for this very interesting conversation!