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Yanfeng Auto
How IBM helps Yanfeng Auto improve R&D efficiency and accelerate experience-driven transformation
Yanfeng Auto and IBM
Many Chinese automotive companies have built comprehensive R&D systems that feature popular R&D tools and high-level informatization. But they are still facing problems such as lengthy R&D processes and difficulty in adapting to the new automotive lifecycle. R&D collaboration becomes critical in optimizing R&D processes and improving R&D efficiency. With changing customer needs and industry trends, innovation iteration and project delivery are running in parallel at a high speed, increasing the difficulty of quality management and leading automakers to set a higher bar for their suppliers’ quality traceability.
This presented a challenge for Yanfeng Electronic Technology, a subsidiary of leading global automotive supplier Yanfeng Auto. In a recent project, a leading automotive customer required Yanfeng Electronic Technology to acquire AutomotiveSPICE certification (a process evaluation model for the automotive industry jointly developed by major European automakers) and provide detailed traceability covering customer demands, including system, software, architecture design and test cases. Previously, Yanfeng Electronic Technology simply used spreadsheets, the granularity of which did not meet the customer’s demand, and content maintenance was also inefficient. In this light, Yanfeng Electronic Technology aimed to improve its own R&D capabilities and business operation, and it sought to quickly understand whether the coverage of customer needs and test coverage were being properly completed through visualization.
The IBM® Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) platform is the market-leading solution for efficient R&D management, consisting of systems and software engineering management tools that provide full lifecycle development management from early design to final vehicle inspection and certification. It also helps manage automotive compliance and compliance with regulatory requirements outlined by standards, including Automotive SPICE (ASPICE), ISO-26262, SOTIF, ISO/SAE 21434 and WP.29.
Impressed by the traceability of IBM ELM, Yanfeng Electronic Technology chose to work with IBM to create a more efficient ELM platform, and currently uses three of the modules to coordinate application development and monitor its quality and functionality:
- DOORS Next Requirement Management. It not only has the requirement management function to support demand collaboration and demand development technology, but also adds AI capabilities that guarantee the high quality of engineering requirements, reducing defect costs by up to 60% and manual review costs by 25% and accelerating time-to-market.
- Rhapsody Design. Covering architecture design, code generation, requirements model simulation and other functions, it also supports the full set of AUTOSAR frameworks that allow engineers to carry out complete AUTOSAR design and establish connections with requirements, tests, tasks, plans, defects, etc.
- Engineering Workflow Management (EMW) work items. As a workflow management module, EWM not only covers project management, plan management, task management and change management, but also supports problem management, issue management and defect management. It also supports code repository management and CICD, supporting DevOps and more development management modes through workflows, ensuring orderly, efficient and agile R&D workflow.
By deploying IBM ELM, Yanfeng Electronic Technology’s core goal is to comprehensively improve the quality of the company’s products. IBM ELM can help it quantitatively evaluate the quality of requirements management, design, test cases, and realize the data correlation of the whole process, improving the visibility of quality status of software products in real time.
Deng Xiaohui, Security and Sustainability Software Leader at IBM Greater China Group, says: “For traditional and emerging auto players alike, R&D efficiency is a battleground for value add. As a derivative and optimization of IBM Rational software, IBM ELM has been successfully adopted by many leading automotive companies. From Rational to ELM, IBM combines its expertise of automotive R&D with its technology prowess that help clients build an efficient, high-quality, and highly collaborative R&D management platform. In co-creating with Yanfeng Auto, we have worked closely in the fields of engineering lifecycle management and equipment lifecycle management to help it improve R&D efficiency and quality, and integrate agile development and rapid iteration into the whole process.”
Quality improvement leads to cost reduction and an efficiency boost
ELM is in line with Yanfeng Auto’s pursuit of an efficient R&D and operation system. At present, Yanfeng Auto engineers can quickly integrate into work scenarios according to different product types, project levels and development standards in the ELM system, and complete role-based delivery, which greatly improves the delivery rate and quality.
It was difficult to understand the whole picture of quality management when Yanfeng Electronic Technology used tools such as Microsoft Word and Excel. Nowadays, issues such as requirements completion, design coverage and test coverage can be answered through the implementation of the IBM ELM tool chain, so as to achieve transparency of quality data at all stages, so that quality management can be transformed into forward control and prediction, rather than passive detection in the later stage.
Given the fierce competition, reducing costs and increasing efficiency is a major goal for auto players. According to a project leader at Yanfeng Electronic Technology, unlike what many have assumed, emphasizing traceability will not affect development efficiency and delivery speed; on the contrary, it improves efficiency. “If you only focus on delivery time, skip the part of requirements and design, and write code immediately, the quality cannot be guaranteed.”
In terms of IBM ELM empowerment, model reuse can save a lot of effort. For example, the Rhapsody model developed in previous projects can be inherited and easily updated according to new requirements, and the components and functions in it can be added or subtracted.
Thanks to IBM ELM, Yanfeng Electronic Technology was one of the two Chinese suppliers that passed Volkswagen’s AutomotiveSPICE Level 1 assessment in 2019. In 2016, Yanfeng Electronic Technology obtained the certification of AutomotiveSPICE Level 2 with the help of RQM (Rational Quality Management), the previous version of ELM, and passed the AutomotiveSPICE Level 3 assessment in 2020.
Li Fan, Deputy General Manager at Yanfeng Electronic Technology, adds: “As an end-to-end solution, ELM helped us achieve the integrated management of scalable R&D processes. Based on that, we are building a more integrated, sustainable and intelligent R&D platform to further reduce cost and increase efficiency. In the future, we hope to work closely with IBM in exporting Chinese models of manufacturing efficiency to the world for the benefit of the entire automotive industry, and making more progress in the field of Internet of Vehicles in addition to intelligent cockpit.”
Yanfeng (link resides outside of ibm.com) is a leading global automotive supplier focusing on interior, exterior, seating, cockpit electronics and passive safety. Yanfeng has more than 240 sites and approximately 57,000 employees worldwide. The technical team of 4,100 experts are based at 14 R&D centers and other regional offices, with complete capabilities including engineering and software development, design, as well as testing and validation. Focusing on smart cabin and lightweight technology, Yanfeng supports automakers as they explore future mobility spaces and provide leading cabin solutions.
About Yanfeng Electronic Technology
Yanfeng Electronic Technology focuses on the field of intelligent cockpit, with the cockpit domain controller at its core, integrating the cockpit electronic system of interactive intelligence, scenario intelligence and personalized services, and collaborating with the innovation of user interface products such as interior, seat and safety, to provide consumers with a more intelligent and convenient interactive experience, and help automakers explore the future mobility space. Yanfeng Electronic Technology is committed to becoming an industry-leading provider of automotive cockpit electronic products and system solutions.
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