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The new paradigms of product development | Günther Schuh | TEDxRWTHAachen


thank you very much for that nice
introduction and very warm welcome here
to often and we invested in our best
weather and well I just came back
yesterday morning from Boston from and
yearly annual show of a leading software
American software company and you
believe it or not it happened on a stage
that was the original later stage of
lady gaga and well I was feeling a bit
uncomfortable and I said to all these
because I was very impressed this is
pure American we couldn’t do that in
Germany but if I look here I think it’s
coming close to that so warm welcome and
my topic is new paradigms of product
development on the example of electrical
vehicles that we are trying to push a
bit forward push a bit forward push it
push a bit forward and well it is very
interesting how our innovation process
can or could or will happen in the
future the only thing we as German
traditional engineers know already is it
will be different and because it is
difficult to do market surveys to
understand what customers really want we
have a lot of volatility it is well the
opposite of play Noble is is is
uncertainties very difficult to build
our plans and on their circumstances of
uncertainty it is all so much
interdependent that it’s complex over
complex we even say in German and
ambiguity is well it is a hard hard to
tell and for engineers that’s perhaps
the worst and I would start with with
one important part and electrical
vehicles
are a good example I mean we see lots of
movement a lot of international or
worldwide interest on that for very easy
to understand reasons in Germany for
instance I think we have right now about
30 electrical cars pure electrical cars
that you can buy but if we put that
roughly in comparison to what number of
cars are sold nobody buys it so the
question is actually in one of my last
lectures in that semester somebody of
the students said to me I know now why
these car guys especially in Germany
they love so much the combustion engine
they just had to develop these cars but
they don’t want to sell them so perhaps
well I doubt that but the question is
how to figure out what customers really
want or so what’s at the other side of
that bridge and if so and I believe we
could do better in recognizing what
customer needs with facts with big data
with a lot of new approaches however
this wouldn’t push the fork completely
away on that bridge so even if we would
do better in the beginning with the
orientation where to where to shoot with
our ideas what what markets we’d like to
address there will be a big remaining
part of not being secured and that needs
agility agility in product development
in terms of well we have to start I
think a big big issue is in all the good
ideas if you have a good basic idea get
started and don’t waste too much time in
too much of inquiries and surveys and so
so forth but if you do so you have to be
capable to adjust and that is very
difficult with our traditional very
domain and department and silo oriented
organizations in companies and and we
tried to figure out why are we as as
human beings in our social groups and
companies so hesitating and we found out
five
Caressa characteristics in our natural
behavior what we normally do and one is
we associate progress with tiny tiny
step-by-step advancement on what we know
on existing concepts and that leads
automatically to incremental innovations
and especially German engineers are very
proud to work so solidly in in being
secure in deep dives in in deep surveys
to improve something at least in a tiny
step but in a known environment in a
known concept environment and so forth
first problem second we have something
like completeness paranoia I know that
in the US especially Germans are blamed
to have that paranoia because we came
over some 25 years with s AP and s AP
was one of the the leading business
software vendors in the world and
especially in America a lot of people
said it is so annoying to get all data
structured and complete because of it
before you can start that that software
that’s German completeness paranoia you
don’t need it but they want it so and I
think something is true on that to be
honest and sometimes it’s helped it
helps but nowadays it hinders also third
we have that behavior without thinking
it’s it’s just more a habit that we
think in known patterns very normal very
human so to say so that means I stick to
my
the plane for instance as a mechanical
engineer I typically have some doubts to
really step into electrical engineering
or one step further or in in data
science data analytics in sophisticated
MS for instance and so that means it is
very difficult to think over-the-counter
if myself if I have doubts if I hesitate
to to really allow myself to think in
the neighbor departments or domains the
the fourth thing is the capability just
to think in short term adoptions we we
if we if we have a great idea and there
are lots of great ideas around not only
was young people not only with startups
there are great ideas around in all
these companies but they they very soon
very early people stop thinking that way
if these ideas would lead them beyond
that what the the social system in which
they are working would not be used to do
that and so and all that divided
responsibilities this decentralized
system brings just short-term little
incremental the above point as as as the
potential step or step lengths in
innovation we normally achieve yeah and
and the last is we find beautiful we
like those things we are knowing the
best so standards are very important for
us especially in Germany we like
technical standards we when we start to
invent something we first look in a
standard book or we know these centers
so there is a resistance to step out of
that frame that is already given in
standards look on autonomous driving we
are very much hesitating to
at least design rules above the level 3
assistant highly assisted driving and
and really automatic driving starts on
level 4 and especially on level 5 and no
safety driver is involved anymore more
so I would like to step in a few of
these items and how we tried in our
little arm valley to well step out of
these borders and one was to overcome
that incremental innovation thing and
you know if you talk now about the new
mobility of course a lot of people say
of course that is purely electrical and
it has to well really replace the known
car with the the combustion car with all
its features that that combustion cars
normally have well we had that situation
before you remember Henry Ford those
days he claimed that he said in 1908 he
said if I would have asked the market he
would have the market would have
answered faster horses you know we are
about to do the same the whole auto
industry well at least in Europe missed
the first shot of starting into real EVs
then they realized the second one that
was a Tesla approach and they were
surprised it took quite some years and
then they invented first departments
Tesla fighting departments in more or
less all of these om companies that’s
probably not the worst idea but a late
idea it the name even tells you that
it’s a late idea and now they’re in the
third wave and they think they
understood what you what we really want
and they asked us and we said faster
horses I know more range I think it’s
the same
so we invest now in big batteries and
charging stations everywhere and and
high-speed charging and so forth if you
are on that bridge looking in that fog
there are other ways to find out for
instance if you realize what you really
really can achieve with with electrical
power trains that of course is a mission
free at the place where it’s used not
where the energy is is gained or
transformed and so why don’t you just
stand with several people counting
downtown cities where this emission is
quite high like in our we are one of the
22 cities in in Germany that are blamed
from the EU commission that they are
above the levels of emission so we will
get some some whatever measures to take
against that and the best the only
measure I can imagine of is stopping
some of the traffic in the cities so
that’s perhaps not the nicest idea
because people even want to live more in
cities than less so what we did we just
stood in in the city in the city of our
and looked in the faces that good ad
with as we could of those people driving
in the city and it came out that there
are some 15 customer types and then we
said on that custom idea did a customer
journey and looked what this customers
potential customers do on a normal day
and that is the well in Germany we call
it mama taxi or family taxi this is you
know getting up bringing kids to school
arriving at school going in and offers
in this case a part-time job of the the
mother arriving in an meeting going in a
grocery store waiting at school to pick
the kids up and having further transfer
kids to sport and so forth and so forth
no rental car no car sharing can solve
that
you don’t need a normal car with normal
range because it is an average we
counted seven to eight drives per day in
total 65 kilometers or in this day even
less 35 so six lounges 35 kilometers per
day waiting time for one hundred and
thirty minutes so charging possibility
either at home or at the working place
where you are and then we did the same
with all the other user descriptions and
we found out it is important for drivers
even those who are not interested in
cars how the car look like it’s like
like your address you care how you look
and if you’re sitting in a car your
dress is the car so most people are
interested even those who have no idea
about or no no passion with cars and and
a lot of people don’t want to change
cars because how to use them I just
talked to somebody who drove first-time
rental Mercedes and you saw what big
block is that behind the steering wheel
blue and then it writes to use a blinker
you know with the temple mat and well so
user habits are very important privacy
is important availability is important
and that gives a complete new story to a
car and so we said a small car but it
must be capable to carry stuff it must
be a four-seater it could be small and
it would be affordable so anybody could
afford that if we do that completely
different than an existing car so not
and to early assumption to take just the
same things like anybody takes and the
first idea was is it possible to make
such a small car with a non carrying
exterior that’s just plastic term
thermoform plastic is it possible to
make that safe and so we build it with a
specs list of 20% of the whole car only
we builded these rolling chassis and and
assumed what is the safety what is the
Tresh safety what is the driving
behavior next single test next crumb
loop next iterative loop was to figure
out whether it is possible to have a
nice driving feeling a speedy feeling
good acceleration with a very small
electrical car using again some
technology benefit of electrical engines
that’s the boost function and since we
got an arrangement with Bosch and God
start your engines from big cars two of
them as our our powertrain and that you
know my specs my most important specs
that I gave worse if it starts at the
traffic light you know that’s very
important it has to make black lines you
know so you have to push the boost
function and so this car is faster in
acceleration at the traffic light than
my portion I see you don’t believe that
well we actually it m well the next
traffic light should be close and now
and now we figured out how how close
it’s three meters so however it’s really
fun to start with that and so we had in
in total we developed that car from that
first idea five times five times the
different car we knew that we have
iterations so we were not pushed we
really wanted to learn with each
iteration and so a couple of weeks ago
we introduced that car that’s now the
final comp we did this like the other
car makers as well we did the biggest
possible ties on but you can order it
with smaller ties if you wish
I wouldn’t recommend because of yet
black lines you know so that is the
complete different of starting with a
full specs list for a car
we started with 20% or so we had a
Waterloo in the middle of that
development we wanted to develop that as
a very small kind a different category
than normal cars that was a micro car
cattery that we category that was just a
bit altered in it in its rules in
Europe it was it is called el 7e
category and the normal house I our m1
category and we this gallery is is less
stress II with homologation which all
day does the rules you have to obey so
we wanted to be built that car in that
category however even with less safety
requirements we wanted to make it as
safety as possible but then all of a
sudden two movies in YouTube appeared
showing two cars in that category in a
crash test and that was such an horrible
movie that we said that but we we are in
that category but we are safe that story
will nobody believed so we changed in
early of December last year a completely
ready design car and decided to all to
change the category and that meant we
made the car 20 centimetres wider so
anybody of you had ever to do with the
auto industry and do tell them that you
approximately six weeks before you want
to go into a homologation you make the
car 20 centimetres wider you can imagine
it’s not just putting some metal of 20
centimetres in the middle of the car it
is a bit more engineering in that and it
involves all of those unfortunately even
our previous design was not possible it
was awfully looking in that wider size
of car of course a lot of mechanics has
had to be changed even some electrics
and electronics and some of the software
had to be changed so if we would have
worked in the traditional disciplines
that change requests that’s the biggest
challenge in industry right now I being
capable to to really have a mature
change requested even partly automated
change requested
that’s that normally would lastly now to
industry let’s say almost a year and we
did it in nine weeks so of course we’re
a small company nice nice startup
mentality that makes a lot of things
easy
however that was an incomparable speed
just because we we stepped out of that
functional department thinking and we
worked with a common set of data which
we called smart data level where we put
aggregated condense data of each domains
in a an accessible data level that we
can address with with with touch tools
with with some easy-to-use tools to
really have collaboration easy so if the
software guy wants to alter his stuff he
sees already all the for him relevant
data from the neighbor department yeah
that is finally that story we wanted to
build a car that would have been a bit
more nicer design but approximately like
this and then we we decided on the 13th
of December to make that car wider to
integrate side airbags to change the
complete design to implement that in our
prototype assembly and we made a market
presentation and err on the cbut in a
NOFA on the 20th of March and well I
would say without that smart data level
without that horizontal integration
above domains and with a lot of partners
on a PLM base with the idea all relevant
data are in the single source of truth
manner stored that you have the precise
access to the very actual data in each
of these domains and disciplines and
finally we just look into the yeah
normally working with standards and to
overcome that and to work in in other
settings
it needs yeah some welly I think that’s
one part of Silicon Valley that makes it
so strong and there are so much good
relationships beyond domain
and beyond even branches that there’s so
much easier in the way to conduct new
business models that’s very necessary
because that helps any single expert to
step into let’s say a neighbor domain
and and start to contribute to an
unusual setting we all in Germany we
cause it’s industry for user stories
will be written different differently
and they can be the basis of a new
requirement understanding in markets and
I think one important part is as early
as potted possible get started get
started and try to objectively as
objective as possible to learn from that
second the the the number of
requirements has to be much more
structured and there should be
priorities on the real things that you
want to make differently we wanted to
make an affordable car so we didn’t want
to accept any significant capex so that
car should be affordable even if you
just produce ten thousand cars in a year
which is a little number in the auto
industry and so prioritization instead
of completeness or completeness paranoia
third the the semantic conflicts between
domains have to be solved through our
behavior but now in the internet age it
can be helped very much because we have
access to all these domains via internet
if we prepare the raw data from all
these priorities we have that access and
and prepare that level of data what we
would call the smart data level and that
would help very much to resolve these
domain limits in semantic base
collaboration and the first thing is to
really
concentrate on the capability of an
organization of change requests that
begins in the very early stage of an
development process and that that should
be continues the whole life of the of
the product our car will be a product
that you can buy but even better is if
you subscribe it because we will offer
you the you have learned that from Tesla
but we will not only or basically offer
software updates we will offer you heart
and software combined combined updates
and that’s possible because the frame of
the car last hundred years that will
won’t get weak like self carrying cars
all the cabling all the engines there’s
nobody in the world producing nice
electrical engines that lasts less than
hundred years so why don’t we keep that
and the rest of the car can be
refurbished disassembled and assembly
again there so starting to step in real
digital products in any domain also in a
very traditional domain of cars and we
need learning organizations like what
you are doing here so it was a great
honor for me to be a small part of that
event thank you very much
[Applause]
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