PECM Issue 37 2019 | Page 64

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 64 PECM Issue 37 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.