Systems engineering – 

bringing people together to create great mobility solutions

Systems Engineering (SE) embodies a mindset change away from component-driven development towards sustainable, customer-centric development by means of systems thinking and feature-orientation. The goal is to develop the best product for the end-customer in the shortest possible time given the least possible resources.

 

Systems Engineering – the new normal

While supporting a highly creative new carmaker to realize its vision for a battery electric vehicle, we worked within a dynamic startup environment to  bring a vehicle on the road according to relevant safety and security regulations.

By implementing a systems engineering approach for requirement specification, we reduced the overall development complexity by decomposing the vehicle into manageable and reusable modules and components. This methodical approach offers several advantages. Through graphical representations of end-to-end vehicle features we created a common understanding and established a common communication base in the team. We also identified and highlighted dependencies between individual artifacts, enabling project teams to efficiently coordinate responsibilities and interfaces between each other.

Because of these advantages, more and more companies are introducing systems engineering into their development process and embracing a model-based mindset. FEV supports this whole process – we provide the methodology, tailor it to your needs and empower all stakeholders to successfully live their role within that given framework.

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The key to success: a systems-oriented mindset

The more complex the project, the greater the benefit of systems engineering. In cooperation with a world-leading automotive player, we were able to prove this statement in the development of a high performance electrified powertrain platform.

Through application of fundamental systems engineering practices and the efficient representation of dependencies between development artifacts it was possible to define the technical conditions (design, performance, application) within which a comprehensive platform could be developed. The tailored approach focused on high reusability of developed artifacts in order to facilitate a common basis also for future vehicle programs, saving resources and increasing product quality.

Together with our customer, we have introduced model-based systems engineering on a large scale, supported the development of the platform and empowered the employees to effectively create artifacts themselves. The result was scalable systems that could be applied to five different vehicle derivates, leading to a sustainable and efficient architecture and on-time start of production (SOP).

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Consultancy that is meaningful – supporting the technical realization of concepts for automated driving

 

When developing SAE Level 3-4 autonomous driving functions, we are confronted with a wide variety of scenarios. After all, such systems must function safely in all conceivable situations, which presents major challenges. Industrialization of the description of comprehensive scenario spaces and test cases is therefore a key factor to accelerate development and to bring autonomous driving functions to production.

Together with a German premium manufacturer, we set up a consultancy project to identify gaps in their current development process and design a concept for adequate verification of SAE L3+ features. After jointly defining a target MBSE methodology, we coached customer employees in workshop sessions and empowered them to apply it in their daily work life.

Then we followed up by supporting the technical implementation: the operational design domain (ODD) and selected scenarios were modelled in accordance with the OpenScenario standard and reflected both the relevant feature context as well as the expected behavior of the ego-vehicle. By tailoring and implementing our proprietary SysML test case generator into the customer’s toolchain, we were able to derive machine-readable test cases from the digital model and feed them directly into the validation pipeline. The systematic frontloading of these activities enabled early and semi-automated testing, yielding more efficient development cycles.

Interested in working with us?

series dev ico shine - FEV.io

Proven experience in prototype and series programs

We have mastered feature & function development & testing projects for nearly all mobility applications.

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Field-tested methodical framework

We provide structured system design and validation according to current safety and security regulations – and we help you to become ready for ASPICE.

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Comprehensive Training and Consulting approach

We empower organizations to become Systems Engineering experts.

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End-to-end understanding

We work along the whole process — from vision to SOP, and from initial systems design to large-scale industrialization.

 

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Collaborative

We bring experts from all relevant fields to the table and create a language that everyone shares and understands.

Hermann Reichling

Johannes Richenhagen
Managing Director