IBM and BMW Group have joined forces to concentrate their combined expertise on what IBM describes as ‘the worldwide automotive industry’s shift from mechanical to primarily software and electronics-based vehicle innovation’.
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BMW Group’s selection makes the automaker IBM’s lead customer in a newly defined business initiative called the Automotive Software Foundry (ASF).
IBM say that its ASF solutions for automotive manufacturers and suppliers provide an ‘integrated set of processes, tools and services that enable the evolution from mechanical to more sophisticated software and electronic content in new vehicles’. The solution’s components cover the entire software lifecycles of autos, including software design, development, testing, integration with automotive production, management and maintenance. Terms of IBM’s agreement with BMW Group, which in the first stage include software and consultative services, were not disclosed.
“Our goals with ASF are to help BMW Group keep and strengthen its technology leadership in the field of automotive electronic and software development, speed time-to-market, and help BMW drive innovation by improved management of the increasingly complex software and electronic content in cars,” said Janette Beauchamp, general manager of IBM’s Global Automotive Industry. “In terms of retaining and developing core competencies for a razor-sharp competitive edge, BMW Group and IBM are joining forces to take on a challenge of top strategic importance to the future of the automotive
industry worldwide.”
Under the agreement with IBM, BMW Group will gain new capabilities to define and control how embedded software and electronic content is used to design, develop, manufacture, and service future vehicle generations.
BMW Group will work with IBM to:
*Sharpen its competitive edge through increased core competency in and a set of best practices around the development, integration and marketing of software and electronic content to be used in automobiles of the future.
*Establish open-standards-based software-development system that will serve as the foundation for the integration of existing and future software tools and processes that can be shared between BMW Group, its suppliers and its service arms. Traceability throughout the entire lifecycle of the vehicle is a key feature of the ASF solution.
*Achieve faster and more predictable time-to-market.
*Increase competitive differentiation through innovation as new models with higher performance capabilities emerge.
“By partnering with IBM, we will adopt and implement open-standards based embedded software tools, systems and processes across our extended enterprise that will define a new generation of products and expand business opportunities for our company, “said Mr. Hans-Georg Frischkorn, Senior Vice President for Car Electronics at BMW Group.”
