Sami D.-Management/Strategy Consulting: Reorganization and Optimization of R&D Department with Focus on Software Development

Taskforce leadership for the development of a central ECU for autonomous driving levels 23 and 4

• Advise on establishing a new business area for mechatronic systems in the field of battery management systems
• Assess the current situation in different product divisions based on interviews with management and project members
• Document and present the assessment, and derive consolidation measures
• Develop an overall software/electronics strategy, including personnel recruiting, definition of a PEP development process, establishment of the development toolchain and a product release process
• Define requirements for R&D, Purchasing, Sales, Quality and Production
• Ensure compliance with APSICE, functional safety and cybersecurity requirements
• Align the strategy with the divisions involved and group management
• Support the HR team in selecting and interviewing candidates
• Coordinate external partners: research institutes, universities, partner companies and suppliers
• Prepare an overall cost estimate, including detailed planning for approval and budgeting
• Support Sales with acquisition and component cost calculation
• Advise the industrialization team on software, electronics and supply chain issues
• Provide regular reporting to managing directors and group management

• Taskforce assignment and consulting for project reorganization
• Design the project organization, identify stakeholders, establish interfaces and transition the project out of taskforce mode
• Lead an interdisciplinary team of 25–35 employees at three locations (HW development, software development, establishment of a data center for HIL/SIL farm, system testing, system analysis, network specialists)
• Define and document the system architecture as well as requirements and change management
• Introduce methods for resource planning and project controlling
• Provide strategic advice to management and derive measures to achieve objectives
• Create transparency regarding product maturity, resources and collaboration, and initiate optimization measures
• Closely coordinate with software development and the FOs involved (object recognition, object tracking, basic functions, algorithm development, LIDAR Optical Module)
• Manage six suppliers for proprietary software and hardware components
• Advise on establishing customer reporting and organizing the taskforce
• Advise on creating the validation strategy for validating the Lidar sensor
• Take responsibility for developing the HIL/SIL infrastructure and establishing a data center at three global locations
• Design Data Center Level 1 and 2 support, including SLA creation
• Track and report daily to management and top management on the customer side
• Plan resources and budgets using standard project methods
• Create validation and release concepts for HIL/SIL, including the data center
• Rebuild requirements management and resolve conflicts with internal and external stakeholders
• Continuously manage risks and document work processes in accordance with ISO 26262 and ASPICE

• Management of a 30-person SW integration team in Germany, Poland, Romania and Ukraine
• Planning, scheduling and monitoring of all software integration activities throughout the development cycle
• Creation of a process for Integration Build & Release Management
• Establishment and monitoring of Continuous Integration processes
• Establishment and enforcement of a process for configuration management of SW artifacts
• Coordination of SW package contents and schedules with internal and external suppliers
• Change management for internal/external CRs and coordination with defect management
• Architecture coordination and decision-making on the integration sequence of SW packages
• Responsibility for SW testing and validation, management of test instances
• Coordination of activities at external locations
• Creation and approval of SW release documentation

• Embedded software development in a multiprocessor architecture
• Management of a globally distributed development team of approx. 100 experts in Singapore, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Mexico and Germany
• Coordination of requirements engineering, test management, software QA, defect management, functional specialist groups, platform development, configuration management, HMI development and software architecture
• Budget planning and coordination with management, support for quotation calculation
• Reporting to BU management and top management
• Central customer contact in meetings and workshops
• Software delivery and series release
• Continuous risk management and central schedule planning
• Management of the core team and CCB meetings, change management monitoring

• Development of a battery system for EV vehicles and stationary applications
• Benchmarking of current Li-Ion storage technologies
• Analysis of possible system topologies and definition of the system architecture
• Detailed planning of the system architecture and required control units
• Creation of a networking concept and circuit design
• Design of the mechanical packaging concept
• Conducting FMEA and functional safety assessments

• Technical project management for the infotainment variant tree in a multi-project environment
• Responsibility for Head Unit variants for various vehicle lines and markets
• Central point of contact for module scopes within the VW Group
• Support of various product generations (3G, 3G+, MIB I, MIB II)
• Management and coordination of design, vehicle electrical systems, EMC, Robust Design, system testing, HILs and networking boards
• Creation of schedules and coordination with suppliers
• Support of system suppliers from Japan/Belgium and Germany/USA
• Creation and coordination of control unit specifications
• Planning and management of control unit qualification at external service providers
• Series release and bill of materials maintenance
• Conducting D-FMEA and design reviews at suppliers

• Definition of test scopes for the artificial aging of test specimens
• Investigation of aging effects on capacity, internal resistance and performance
• Analysis of maximum load capacity regarding temperature, charge/discharge cycles and output power
• Setup of the test arrangement, execution of tests and evaluation of results

• Conducting audits at electronics manufacturers according to the APQP methodology
• Initiating and tracking optimization measures
• Conducting P-FMEA and approving production lines
• Regular inspection of ongoing mass production and collection of quality data
• Preparing quality statistics and approving goods for shipment