In today´s competitive automotive markets, demanding consumers choose their mobility solution based on many different factors like… aesthetics, emotional appeal, performance, affordability, function or comfort. Automotive suppliers like Visteon prove that when carmakers´ vehicle programs are successful, it´s often thanks to the many “silent heroes of innovation” in their partner network. While up to 80% of vehicle innovation today is accomplished by engineering, technology, manufacturing or other expert suppliers, these companies must have the ability to deliver efficiency and innovation under extreme financial and time-to-market pressures.

Suppliers share risk as they transform technological advancements and dynamic customer demand into absolutely safe and functional components and systems … at the right time, place and price. It´s no surprise why the Automotive OEMs invest in recognizing innovative supplier contributions like with the PACE award, where Visteon was amongst the 2014 finalists.

Connecting the Dots

Constantly changing compliance standards and globally dispersed teams across many different engineering disciplines make it impossible to succeed by solely relying on office applications or by using isolated data repositories. To be able to compete and win profitable business, it is becoming increasingly important for suppliers to be able to rapidly analyze opportunities based on facts.  Once awarded, they have to be able to synchronize all commercial, operational and technical disciplines like design, engineering, simulation and manufacturing, so that they are able to deliver on target.

Key processes to optimize

Automotive Suppliers’ can increase their win ratio, productivity and profit margin from awarded bids when they focus on the following four key areas:

1. The bidding process – including Business Portfolio Management, Quotation Management and Bid Packaging & Submission. Even small improvements in these areas have a direct impact on business and can factor in the survival of a company.
2. General Project & Change Management as well as Bill-Of-Material & Design Data Management. Companies like Brano have realized 30% higher throughput of projects leveraging a common process architecture across all disciplines.
3. Systems Engineering and Advanced Product Design including Modular and Knowledge Driven Design. This area is today´s main battlefield of engineering productivity, paving the way for mastering exponentially increasing complexity in the future.
4. Integrated Performance Validation and Integrated Mold & Tooling and Manufacturing Engineering. For these processes, new IT technology brings unprecedented potential for reducing iteration cycles and for process synchronization.

Cultivating success through innovation

Automotive leaders know that winning profitable business and delivering on promise takes an integrative and collaborative approach to innovation. They opt for a game-changing platform,

which leverages their existing know-how and IT systems, while fueling the innovation culture driven by their people to satisfy customer requirements.