AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
THE FIRST 450 DAYS
BMW
SIX QUESTIONS FOR ELMAR FRICKENSTEIN,
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AUTOMATED DRIVING
AND DRIVER ASSISTANCE, BMW AG
In September 2017, you and your team
moved to the Autonomous Driving
Campus in Unterschleissheim. What
prompted the BMW Group’s decision to
create this new site?
We are currently experiencing the largest
paradigm shift in the history of the
automotive industry. The industry is set to
witness more change in the next decade than
in the past 30 years. Today, we are already
on the brink of highly automated driving.
There are many challenges to overcome
as we progress towards highly and fully
automated driving, the biggest of which
is surely to handle the overall complexity
of the task. To succeed, we must have the
courage to change our way of thinking. And
this is exactly what we have done. Having
the Campus as a central site where all of the
BMW Group’s autonomous driving resources
are bundled forms a fundamental element
of our all-embracing approach. Here, we
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work closely interconnected also with our
technology and collaboration partners on
the development of the necessary technical
solutions. For example, software developers
can immediately test out code they have just
written – in the actual vehicle and in just a
few steps. Everything is done on a common
code base. The Campus with all its facilities
was completed in record time; we moved in
just one year after receiving the go-ahead.
After the first 450 days there, what
changes do you feel working together at
the Campus has brought about?
At the same time as moving to the Campus
last year, we adopted an agile working
method known as LeSS – Large Scale Scrum.
And we aligned the organisational structure
to the new working environment. Working in
feature teams with end-to-end responsibility,
our employees at the Campus produce
valid results in two-week sprints that they
can test out and experience in the actual
vehicle. It’s incredible to see just how much
this new way of working together motivates
the developers. The remarkable spirit I can
sense here on a daily basis is another thing
that reminds me of Silicon Valley. That is why
I personally see the Autonomous Driving
Campus as symbolising the dawn of a new
era in mobility. I’ve been at BMW for 30
years and have both witnessed and played
an active part in many changes. But when I
moved to my new workplace at the Campus
on September 18th 2017, I was in no doubt
that a new chapter in the BMW Group story
was beginning here. The Campus is different,
new, innovative and quite unique in the
automotive industry. We need to embrace
change in this way if we want to master
the complexity of autonomous driving; the
development of new technologies calls for
new approaches.