Bosch and IBM create platform for intelligent automotive components

Robert Bosch GmbH and IBM have announced a collaborative partnership to create a new, data-driven model to more efficiently and accurately develop intelligent, interconnected automotive products.

Built on open standards and IBM design tools, the continuous engineering software platform can quickly scale to thousands of partners, clients, engineers and technicians, Bosh said.

By engaging all relevant stakeholders in the automotive supply chain and elevating the right data from them, the standards-based platform will cornerstone Bosch's long term vision for cross-industry collaboration to quickly deliver increasingly smarter and safer vehicles, the company said in a release.

''Today's vehicles are more connected than ever - containing as many as 100 computerised controllers and 10 million lines of software code. Bosh said the new development platform is intended to address the pressure on automotive suppliers to reduce costs and to innovate quickly, while also ensuring vehicle quality.''

Bosch said, by unlocking core engineering processes across teams and development partners, the IBM platform will enable it to achieve a key of efficient engineering by establishing a strategic, transparent reuse approach.

''Our aim is greater agility, accelerating product innovation and delivery," said Dirk Hoheisel, Board Member at Robert Bosch GmbH. ''By implementing a software and systems design platform founded on integration and reuse, we're able to improve our integration and increase development quality - setting higher safety and quality standards not only for our company, but for the industry as a whole.''

The IBM solution would enable Bosch to execute its long term initiative of a standards-based platform for end-to-end efficiency and strategic reuse of engineering artifacts while easily meeting safety and maturity standards such as ISO26262, ASPICE, AUTOSAR and others as they continue to evolve, the company said.

"Strategic reuse and the ability to unlock engineering knowledge are core components of what IBM has coined 'Continuous Engineering'," said Kristof Kloeckner, General Manager of IBM Rational Software. "Through process advisory and automation, our design and development tools allow our automotive clients, such as Robert Bosch GmbH, to streamline product creation and eliminate deployment hurdles - enabling them to be more competitive and agile by focusing on innovation.''