Together for a successful future

Let’s look ahead. What are your expectations for the rest of 2019?

Silvio Schindler: 2019 is certainly exciting. The OEMS face huge challenges. They need a large chunk of their capacity to handle the increasing variety of topics and the increased complexity in the development. But this also opens up new chances since the OEMs assign whole vehicle derivatives. The best example of this is the next electric sports car by Audi, the development of which we are very much involved with. It is the biggest project of the company’s history in which all the departments of PSW are called upon, while the fellow workers are doing a great job. While we develop these electric sports cars with forward-looking technologies, we continue building our own competences.

In addition, sustainability is a theme which moves politics and society. And it’s there where we make our contribution: recently Audi expanded the commissioning in the h-tron project. h-tron is Audi’s concept car for the development of the fuel-cell drive. Within the framework of the commissioning we provide support with our integration competence to start series production. The theme of competence development also plays an important role. In the face of technological change we will further develop our forward-thinking service portfolio on the basis of our strengths in engineering: Simulation, vehicle safety and electronics are important fields of competence.

The entire automotive sector is experiencing the most radical change in its history. What answer does PSW have for the accompanying challenges.

Andreas Fidorra: Since its founding PSW has developed by leaps and bounds: from a three man operation to general developer, developing whole vehicles During this time the company has already overcome many challenges and we will also use the current transformation to grow. We possess comprehensive know how in the complete development of vehicles. In addition, we use broad technological expertise. In combination with our project management and matrix structure we are in the position to simultaneously develop several large projects from concept to series production. In this way we profit from the strategies of the OEMs which increasingly award the development of whole vehicle packages.

In future not only the capacity to simultaneously develop several large projects will be required. Competences in new technologies are also required.

Andreas Fidorra: Absolutely. And today PSW already has important competences in future technologies, for instance in prototype-free development. However, we are actively working for our future. PSW clearly focuses on the integration of mobility technologies. In the past months the specialist departments have developed individual departmental strategies which are in line with the company strategy. It was particularly important for us to tackle technology fields that are relevant to the future and take specific measures.

Can you give a more specific example?

Andreas Fidorra: Of course. For instance, the modularity and user experience are increasingly brought into focus in the development of the exterior and interior. In particular, vehicles must be designed in a modular manner with sharing concepts, to maintain them as quickly and easily as possible. At the same time the vehicle interior of the future will be adaptable to the respective use case, to create an individually feel-good atmosphere for the passenger through the perfect interplay of light, sound and air conditioning. Of course this poses new challenges for us as an engineering partner.

In addition, our role as general developer will be further strengthened, while we expand our competences in electrics, complete vehicle and assistant system development. The technological focus lies in the development of level 4 assistance systems and the automatic testing of these on x-in-the-loop-dynamometers.
With our current strategy we are establishing the competences, which will be necessary in the future. In addition all the topics are aligned to each other in such a way that they have a coherent overall appearance. As a strong team we are ideally positioned for the requirements of mobility in the future.