The global automotive market is pivoting rapidly to the design, development, and manufacture of electric vehicles to satisfy consumer demand for sustainable transportation – and, of course, to meet increasingly stringent emission controls. As a key supplier to leading industry brands including Volkswagen, Daimler-Benz, BMW and General Motors, Bury Group faces a new and expanding list of requirements.

To match the pace of change, the company constantly seeks to adapt and enhance its manufacturing and control systems as quickly as possible while maintaining exceptionally high quality. BURY follows multiple industry standards such IATF 16949, ISO26262 and ASPICE, and optimizes its entire development lifecycle to achieve best-practice operations. In addition, to meet the growing expectations of the market and OEM customers, the company is implementing systems related to cyber-security software and functional-safety requirements within its products.

Mariusz Bielawa, Chief Information Officer, BURY, says, “Our strategy is to employ a holistic approach across all our development processes. The objectives are to improve our overall productivity, enhance our engineering quality, and achieve greater sustainability through reduced rework, fewer resources, and virtual modelling to replace physical prototypes.”

However, as the company grew, BURY’s existing engineering lifecycle management system was unable to keep pace, and did not offer sufficient functionality.

“To deliver the best solutions and products – both hardware and software - to our highly demanding clients, we wanted to ensure that our complex processes and development cycles run smoothly, quickly, and correctly to the highest standards,” explains Bielawa.

To assist the search for an enhanced solution, BURY engaged SmarterProcess, an IBM Business Partner. SmarterProcess specializes in consulting and technology services, including test automation, requirements management, quality management, integrated application development cycle, DevOps, and application deployment automation.

Working closely with SmarterProcess, BURY selected the IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) platform as its target solution. The IBM solution supports full product lifecycle management, from specifications and requirements phases through to design, test, build, monitor, and optimize phases, for both physical and software products. The selection process was supported by SmarterProcess, which provided advice, service, and support for the IBM solution.

BURY opted to implement the complete platform, a choice designed to reduce the possible impacts of subsequent individual component installations. SmarterProcess managed the deployment, which included a test environment used to train the first groups of platform users on all available products.

SmarterProcess handled the entire implementation, including helping BURY to design processes that would take advantage of the new capabilities offered by IBM ELM.

After a deployment phase lasting about three months, SmarterProcess provided additional support to develop the platform, including creating reports using IBM Engineering Lifecycle Optimization publishing tools. To manage the transition, current projects were completed on BURY’s existing system, and all new projects were started on the new IBM platform, eliminating the need for a project migration process.

Marcin Blacha, System Administrator at BURY, comments, “During the implementation we solved organizational and technical challenges, including introducing new processes and system responses. We were delighted with the support from SmarterProcess, their skills, and the comprehensive training. Everything was managed correctly and on time, with full approval from our engineers.”

With IBM ELM, data from all processes now resides in one place, forming a single source of the truth for ongoing projects as well as a central repository for product data storage.

“Previously, storing information in different tools was a source of many ambiguities. By using IBM ELM as BURY’s central repository, we have eliminated these problems and greatly improved our reporting capabilities,” continues Blacha.

He adds: “We use requirements management (DOORS Next) and quality and testing process management (Test Management), along with standard mechanisms for reporting data through IBM Engineering Jazz Reporting Service and Engineering Publishing. In addition, we use OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle), an open standard implemented by IBM as part of the IBM Engineering platform. Thanks to this unique functionality, we can freely integrate the solution with other existing products that support our engineering processes.”

To be approved for customer projects, BURY must meet specific qualification levels of ISO26262 and ASPICE standards. As the company achieves higher qualification levels, this will open up opportunities for additional, more complex and higher-value automotive projects. The IBM Engineering platform and SmarterProcess will enable BURY to achieve and maintain greater levels of process maturity, above the standards required by ASPICE.

Currently, BURY is using the IBM Engineering platform for variant management, where a core product is tailored depending on the final customer. BURY meets ASPICE levels 2 and 3, and is ultimately targeting higher levels. SmarterProcess is helping BURY to optimize its processes to enable enhanced support for variant components, and IBM ELM will enable full product lifecycle management, from design onwards, appropriate to each customer such as Bentley, BMW, and VW. The Global Configuration capabilities that handle variant management are becoming increasingly important to BURY as it extends its marketing internationally.

“IBM ELM  greatly helps our entire team to achieve these essential ASPICE certifications. The solution helps us successfully manage our complex multi-threaded, multi-person projects, and gives us the ability to meet the ASPICE requirements – a ‘must’ if we want to provide services and solutions to customers at a certain level of quality,” continues Blacha. “BURY sees SmarterProcess as a trusted advisor that helps us gain the maximum advantage from our investment in IBM solutions.”

Over half of BURY’s 2,200 staff use the IBM Engineering platform, and adoption across all departments is rising.

“Our previous solution suffered from availability issues, and its performance and implementation did not allow teams to work and complete their daily tasks. Working with SmarterProcess to implement IBM ELM eliminated these problems and provided a solution that is highly available and scalable, and fully satisfies BURY's current needs,” comments Bielawa. “At BURY we look into the future, and try to anticipate new trends. For example, in response to the growing popularity of electric vehicles, we created our range of electric car chargers. Thanks to IBM ELM, we expect to be able to begin scale-up production within just a few months, greatly reducing our time-to-market.”

As the shift to electric drivetrains eliminates traditional components and generates requests for new solutions and innovations, BURY is keen to remodel its business to reflect the new market opportunities.

“To stay competitive, BURY adheres to the highest quality, control, and efficiency standards, and regularly evaluates manufacturing processes to ensure the company is sustainable,” concludes Bielawa. “IBM ELM enables BURY to implement industry standards and optimize our entire development lifecycle, helping us to improve productivity, reduce rework, cut resource consumption, and meet tomorrow’s automotive industry challenges. The key benefit from the competitive advantage perspective is the raising of process maturity, which allows for greater recognition of BURY among its customers. The process maturity achieved through the IBM Engineering solution proves to customers that BURY is an experienced provider that follows the highest market standards.”

BURY is a leading manufacturer of electronic components and a supplier of advanced information and communication systems for the automotive industry all over the world. Established in 1987, the company employs more than 2,200 people, of whom over 500 are engineers. BURY operates in Mielec and Rzeszow in Poland and in Huamantla, Mexico, with headquarters in Löhne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. 

SmarterProcess provides professional consulting services to support clients in the transformation of their key business processes. SmarterProcess was established in September 2012 as a specialist IT solutions provider selling IBM - Rational (software engineering), I-Concur Software or UrbanCode (application implementation automation) software in Poland.