Moving Through the Storm’s Eye – Automotive Engineering Current State & Future Scope
- June 22, 2023
- 8 min read
- By Sabeeha Banu
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The COVID-19 outbreak hampered the production of automobiles. Vehicle sales took a hit. As the pandemic recedes, automakers have resumed vehicle manufacturing with limited capacity and safety measures in place. Amid talent scarcity, automotive firms are opting to outsource.
The global automotive engineering outsourcing industry is skyrocketing owing to soaring demand for electric vehicles and autonomous vehicle innovative technologies.
Top businesses use outsourcing to beat rivals in the race for innovation by boosting value generation and slashing time to market. Automobile companies profit from flexible staff to fill skill gaps, respond more swiftly to demand surges, and free up in-house employees for more challenging jobs.
The Game-Changing Technological Trends in Automotive Engineering
Technology played a crucial role in overcoming global headwinds for the automotive industry. It paved the way for automakers to leverage emerging trends like virtual showrooms, electric vehicles, and more.
The Rise of Autonomous Vehicles & Self-Driving Cars
AI has gained favor for ushering in the era of self-driving automobiles. The system uses machine learning algorithms, computer vision, and sensor fusion techniques to comprehend the environment around a vehicle, make judgments in real time, and control the automobile across the full range of driving situations. Autonomous cars reduce the need for human drivers and increase efficiency, convenience, and safety.
Elon Musk, the founder of electric car vehicles Tesla, has kept the viewers eagle-eyed on delivering full self-driving cars. Tesla’s campaign to produce a fully autonomous vehicle has suffered amid mounting safety concerns. It will be interesting to see how Musk will cater to what he has promised.
Penetration of the Internet of Things(IoT)
Automobile engineering technology uses the IoT to connect and communicate with other systems for many purposes. Apart from providing customers with infotainment and entertainment, connected vehicles offer a wide range of features, including traffic alerts, real-time location sharing, tracking, emergency SOS calls, roadside assistance, remote vehicle diagnostics, downloading critical software updates from the maker, detecting pedestrians to prevent accidents, and much more!
Exploring Digital Buying in Metaverse
Customers can purchase vehicles in virtual showrooms made with metaverse technologies that are entertaining and interactive. They undergo a unique buying experience with virtual test drives. Auto experts have discovered that employing metaverse technologies has increased client reach for the auto industry. Additionally, it enhances sales, develops brand loyalty, and enables them to reduce showroom and inventory costs. Some automakers are making virtual environments where consumers may interact with the brand.
Electrifying Vehicles
Sales of EVs are soaring globally. EVs already account for 21% of the automotive market in China, the largest automotive market in the world. By 2029, nearly 26% of all vehicles produced worldwide and a third of the North American market might be electric vehicles, according to consultancy AutoForecast Solutions.
Automakers are creating electrification solutions like renewable energy-based charging infrastructures to address environmental issues and increase the accessibility of EVs. These initiatives lower the cost of EVs and offer renewable energy options for environmentally friendly transportation.
Leveraging Advanced Supply Chain
Automotive firms can learn more about their supply chain processes with data visualization (DV). They can pinpoint areas that need improvement and boost productivity. Also, automakers employ data visualization to manage inventory levels and evaluate supplier performance. It leads logistics optimization, forecasting consumer demand, analyzing quality control data, and identifying cost-saving solutions.
Ford Motor Company, an American multinational automobile manufacturer, uses visual analytics tools and dashboards to monitor supplier performance and identify potential issues.
Outsourcing Powers the Automotive Engineering
Automakers require a flawlessly planned supply chain to avoid delays and satisfy client demands. Amid the push for competitiveness and innovation, efficient logistics operations are highly advantageous. Hiring professionals to manage the logistics task can be helpful in this situation. Automakers spend an enormous time and resources on logistics work beyond their core business. They can delegate such tasks to skilled logistics experts. Virtual automotive experts carry out the typical warehouse management, inbound logistics duties, and other value-added services like sequencing or assembly operations. Additionally, they serve as a point of contact for OEMs, second- and first-tier suppliers.
Building Competitive Edge in the Cutthroat Market
The automobile industry frequently sees an unexpected rise in demand, such as a sharp surge in client inquiries. With the help of a reliable outsourcing partner, they can streamline corporate operations and achieve set objectives even when circumstances are rough.
A reliable automotive outsourcing firm offers a wide range of services to participants in the automotive sector that reduce costs, boost profitability, prevent price wars, and outperform the competition.
Working with an outsourcing provider can help automakers spot potential threats, implement practices that cut down on losses, and ensure the most accurate data possible. So always make a decision based on which provider will work well with the team and promote an open environment.
5 Benefits of Outsourcing Automotive Engineering
The automotive industry is suffering a great deal as a result of the world economic crisis. Experts estimate that the shortage of semiconductor chips alone will cost the auto industry more than $200 billion.
Automobile manufacturers are embracing outsourcing given the advantages it offers:
Cost Reduction
Automobile manufacturers continually invest in technology and systems to manage operations. At times, it becomes difficult for an auto company to match the expertise and level of software and communications infrastructure. An experienced outsourcing provider has years of experience with sophisticated technologies that enhance automotive engineering operations. They offer better staff at a significantly lower cost in technology and training.
Flexibility
Running an automotive in-house will subject an in-house team dealing with high operations volumes. When automakers are constantly getting side-tracked by filling in customer service gaps, their focus gets disrupted, and productivity decreases.
Outsourced automotive has the size and staff to ramp up operations quickly, leaving automakers to focus on tasks critical to improving and growing the business.
Subject Matter Expertise
Automakers want to ensure that the in-house staff is experienced in all facets of support. However, in-house employees cannot cater to all the lucrative automotive industry needs. On the other hand, outsourcing automotive engineering gives access to trained and experienced automotive engineers to handle all automotive industry tasks, take care of clerical tasks, and more.
Identify Inefficiencies & Propose Solutions
Automotive outsourcing service providers will have the necessary skills to identify and resolve areas of inefficiency while enhancing the bottom line. They will also be able to offer advice specific to your automotive industry, based on years of experience, to ensure all automotive engineering functions are well optimized for success.
Unifies Teams
The in-house employee conflict exists in almost every company and often comes to the forefront, especially when discrepancies arise. Outsourcing automotive engineering can be an effective way to unify the team and minimize conflict. Outsourcing automotive engineering specialists will work as a mediator, helping the teams align their goals while unburdening them of repetitive tasks.
IT Services That Can Be Outsourced in the Automotive Engineering Industry
The automotive industry outsources a wide range of IT services to outsourcing businesses.
Embedded Solutions
The automobile industry will see demand for embedded systems in the upcoming years. Automobile outsourcing providers improve the power efficiency of vehicles and automotive equipment. It denotes the active application of embedded hardware and software in the automotive sector. GPS, fuel injection systems, parking sensors, airbags, and anti-lock brake systems are examples of the embedded solutions used in portable computing devices found in cars.
Process Automation
Vehicle manufacturers can use outsourcing technology to gain real-time insights into different automobile components' operations. Outsourcing automotive engineering ensures results with more precision and increased productivity. It optimizes automotive tasks and also enhances end users’ experience. For instance, collaborative robots (Cobots) increase manufacturing efficiency and productivity.
Enterprise Mobility
Automotive companies are rapidly adopting mobile solutions to enhance business processes. Outsourcing mobile solutions in the automotive sector brings competitive benefits across all divisions, from production lines to logistics and inventory management. It allows transmitting data more efficiently within an enterprise. Also, it makes operations more transparent, predicts the delivery time, and gets information in real time.
Dealer Management
In the automobile business, software development is necessary for auto distribution. Automakers often outsource dealer management systems. To this end, outsourcing firms connect dealer management systems to IoT sensors. They are flexible to accommodate new stakeholders in the existing supply chain.
Conclusion
It's staggering how cutting-edge technology is driving the automotive industry. Automotive businesses fundamentally lack the technical know-how to implement advances. Some firms cannot afford to establish an internal R&D department. Therefore, automakers must choose automotive engineering outsourcing to hasten the creation of novel solutions to stay ahead.
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