The answer is: Lufthansa Industry Solutions – for they are making connected cars not only more practical, but also more secure
Norderstedt, February 20, 2017 – while driving the car, most people pay attention to various activities next to driving such as navigation, making phone calls, looking for cheap gas stations or buying flowers on their way. Intelligent automobiles are making this possible through taking over more functions. These automobiles are called connected cars and they are full of software, networking and sensors.
But what are the current topics in the automotive industry?
Nils Büring at Lufthansa Industry Solutions knows all about it. This is because LHIND has been advising the biggest German automobile manufacturers and their suppliers, known as the automotive industry, since 1999. “Indeed, the automotive industry and LHIND, as an IT advisor in this sector, are dealing intensively with changing customer behavior. Driving is gradually moving into the background, while incidental activities with additional, precisely-tailored information are taking up more and more space,” Büring says. It is about a new dimension of digitization, where automotive engineering and digital services are intertwined increasingly closely.
With the growth in the number of digital services on board, there is a corresponding rise in the security requirements for these digital systems. Here, the support of an experienced partner for secure digital transformations, such as LHIND, can be the factor that tips the balance, for this subsidiary of the crane has an experienced team of IT security experts at its disposal.
In addition to the end consumer, manufacturers, suppliers and garages have a part to play in networking. “In the automobile industry, there is close integration of the IT systems of manufacturers, suppliers and the retail sector for accelerating production processes and thereby guaranteeing competitiveness. The supply chain has to be transparent, efficient and intelligent and to integrate the partners digitally into the process chain,” Büring says.
“Against a background where automobile manufacturers are increasingly installing systems prefabricated by suppliers, rather than individual components, suppliers need a platform that enables them to organize their production more flexibly in line with incoming orders.” LHIND is also providing support with these “production platforms,” as Nils Büring calls them, where production and logistics are of equal value, because one of its areas of expertise lies in facilitating an optimum supply chain.
With connected cars, the automotive industry is developing additional ways of maintaining constant contact with drivers, whether the automobile is their own or a car-sharing vehicle that they are using temporarily. Companies are seeing themselves as mobility service providers and developing completely new business models. Service licenses are one example of this. For instance, extra horsepower hired temporarily can boost the engine’s performance even further, for purposes such as a weekend trip into the mountains. Alternatively, additional features such as matrix lighting for night driving can be obtained specially, when it is needed.
“The technology required for this is installed at the vehicle production stage and this service is then activated online by the purchase of a license from the manufacturer,” Büring says. This and similar business models are being developed and implemented by LHIND with customers in the automobile industry.