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”An Industrial Drama,” Says Siemens Head of PLM, Tony Hemmelgarn, About Electrification and SDV trends in Automotive

How do the major PLM developers generally view PLM's role in SDV (Software-Defined Vehicles) development and the forward storming electrification technologies as a growing parts of vehicle and transport product realization? The question is brought up to date not least by the announcement this week from the Volvo Group and Daimler Trucks to invest in a 50/50-owned company for the development of an SDV platform for trucks. In two earlier published articles, PLM&ERP News has taken a closer look at this through interviews with leaders of major players in the automotive industry. Siemens Digital Industries Software’s CEO, Tony Hemmelgarn, is one of the PLM profiles interviewed. He is today the longest-serving executive in the entire PLM space. Meet him in my in-depth interview around these two superhot topics.
The claim that the car industry is going through a unique technologically explosive phase right now is no exaggeration, he notes. As AI, electrification, electronics and software—as some of the most prominent new technologies—pave the way and dramatically change product development, timing is everything, for everyone. The right tool at the right time is of the utmost importance. This not only affects PLM developers, such as the leading player in the automotive market, Siemens Digital Industries Software, but also fundamentally changes the situation of car manufacturers. Today’s cars are more connected, software-controlled, autonomous and electric than ever. Each of the vehicles contains, or will soon contain, millions of lines of code and must daily be able to handle terabytes of data. This is a huge undertaking and it has led to a ”volcanic” change in the way several major vehicle manufacturers work, not least to now quickly build up sophisticated infrastructures for software development. ”What the automotive industry is going through is actually nothing less than an industrial drama,” says Tony Hemmelgarn. ”We are talking about survival of the fittest. The fight is fierce and there are three areas that stand out: Software/electronics, digital manufacturing processes and in a 5-10 year perspective the full impact of artificial intelligence.”
In this interview he also comments the problems that the automotive industry is facing in terms of declining share of sales for electric vehicles.
”New technologies are breaking new ground, often resulting in high growth numbers from initially low volumes. But newly established manufacturing methods, high battery costs, decreasing subsidies and a sluggish growth rate in terms of charging stations can, in parallel with a generally declining economy, can backfire in the form of declining sales. We’re talking about a complex chain of events here that not always move in pace. But over time, the assessment is that electric cars are so important to the sustainability and environmental health of the planet, that today’s declining numbers probably represent more of an unexpected notch in the upward curve than a long term decline.”

Moreover, Hemmelgarn claims in this that Siemens is well equipped in terms of digital tools and industrial competence. ”The Xcelerator portfolio is the industry’s richest in terms of seamlessly integrated software solutions in everything from product development to manufacturing automation – we have what it takes to meet the needs of today’s automotive industry: Cloud, PLM/PDM, CAD design, simulation, EDA (Electronic Design Automation ), ALM (Application Lifecycle Management), Digital Manufacturing, Smart Factory Automation, etc. And we have worked hard and invested a lot to get there,” he said, adding, “During my years as head of Siemens PLM operations, from In 2017, we made 34 acquisitions aimed, among other things, at creating the complete set of tools for the comprehensive digital twin concept.” In this article, the focus is on software, electrification, and electronics in the automotive industry, which according to Hemmelgarn ”created a fundamentally changed playing field.”

Click on the linked headline below to read the full in-depth interview with Tony Hemmelgarn:
Siemens and the Volcanic Shift in Automotive When Software and Electronics Change the Game Plan

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