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future by semcon

#2 2011

Emma Sweet makes sure Jaguar Land Rover’s

advanced cars are easy to use

1 VOLVO’S NEW CONCEPT CAR BUILT IN RECORD TIME

1 EFFECTIVE DELIVERY WITH A CLASSIC BUSINESS MODEL

1 VOLKSWAGEN WANTS TO BE THE WORLD’S BIGGEST

A MAGAZINE ABOUT ENGINEERING SERVICES & PRODUCT INFORMATION # 2 2011

DIFFICULT MADE

SIMPLE

CONTENTS #2.2011ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE OF FUTURE BY SEMCON

2 FUTURE BY SEMCON 2.2011

EDITORIAL

Efficient delivery24 HIS DEMANDS FOR CARS OF THE FUTUREDr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Executive President of the Volkswagen Group, manages technical develop-ment for one of the world’s largest automotive groups. The work makes great demands on the company’s partners: “For us, expertise and resourc-es on a local level are extremely important,” he says.

30 THE SUPER-MATERIAL GIVING NEW ENERGY TO ELECTRIC CARSGraphene is a material that can help batteries charge much faster. Should it become reality, it would revolutionize the use of electric cars. Future has interviewed Dr. Ilhan Aksay, professor in chemi-cal and biological engineering at Princeton Univer-sity, which is developing this new technology.

34 MEET SEMCON’S SHARPEST MINDSIn Semcon Brains you’ll meet people with exciting skills and assignments. Micaela Boman is improv-ing fuel injection systems for truck engines, while Emma Sweet is simplifying the management of Jaguar and Land Rover cars. Our design team in Germany creates 3D models.

We have grown together with our customers and we con-tinue to grow. Our focus is on constantly deliver-

ing added value and therefore we continue streamlining our processes to be the profes-sional partner our customers need.

In this edition of Future by Semcon our theme is front office and back office (FOBO). It is an approach that we increasingly work with. In other words, we are as close as pos-sible to our customers while seeking out and employing the best talent wherever it is lo-cated. With FOBO we are able to deliver cost-effective services while not only being in our customers’ immediate vicinity but also giving them access to specialists worldwide. By be-ing close to our customers we get to know them and can see what their needs are and then develop the best skills. The important thing for us is that customers can rely on us and therefore concentrate on their other ac-tivities. This is a model that we believe in and that we and our customers are happy with.

WE ARE ALSO very proud that Dr Ulrich Hack-enberg, Volkswagen’s head of development, is part of this issue. He talks about Volks-wagen’s objectives and about working with us. You can also read about Semcon’s contri-bution to the development of the Universe, Volvo’s concept car and BiFi, a development project that we, with our technical knowl-edge, are running with the Swedish Trans-port Authority.

KJELL NILSSON CEO, SEMCON

6 The bank model is taking overSplitting up organizations into front office and back office is a model that has been used in banks for a long time. The same principle is being ap-plied today at more and more companies, with the difference that half the globe may separate the different departments. Future by Semcon looks at the concept behind the business model.

Website: semcon.com Letters: Future by Semcon, Semcon AB, 417 80 Göteborg, Sweden. Change of address: [email protected] Publisher: Anders Atterling. Tel: +46 70 447 28 19, e-mail: [email protected] Semcon project manager: Madeleine Andersson. Tel: +46 76 569 83 31, e-mail: [email protected] Editorial production: Tidningskompaniet, Göteborg. Project Manager/Editor: Suzanne Kordon. Designer: Charlotte Sundberg. Website: www.tidningskompaniet.se Reproduction: Tidningskompaniet, Göteborg. Translation: Cannon Språkkonsult AB, Kungsbacka. Printing: Trydells Tryckeri, Laholm. ISSN: 1650-9072.

FUTURE BY SEMCON 2.2011 3

TEXT KARIN AASE, JENNY PALM

FOCUS:FRONT OFFICE BACK OFFICE


A CLASSICALBUSINESS MODELCREATINGUNSUSPECTEDOPPORTUNITIES


A CLASSICALBUSINESS MODELCREATINGUNSUSPECTEDOPPORTUNITIES

N MANILA, THE CAPITAL of the Philippines, you often see young, well-dressed, educated people sitting and having a coffee after work - even at eight o’clock in the morning. When most people have barely had time to get out of bed and brush their teeth, they have finished their entire work-ing day. The reason? They work

for a company serving the American market, so have to work when American clients are awake. Many recently-built IT centres located in the city are in full swing between eight o’clock in the evening and eight in the morn-ing, while being practically deserted at midday. In one of these areas the US insurance giant American International Group (AIG) set up an office in 2003 to take care of some of the

More and more companies have the whole world as their workplace. Surviving the battle for custom-ers requires adaptation and a large degree of flexibility. One way to create this is to organize according to the banks’ traditional business model - front office and back office.

And today this model provides clear competitive advantages – also for com-panies way beyond the financial industry.

company’s administration. In two years the business grew from 30 employees to over 600 employees, including managing the company’s customer service, data management and part of the internal administration.

After only two years the unit showed a profit.

THIS MODEL SHOULD not be confused with tra-ditional outsourcing, where you buy services from an external provider. It’s actually the opposite.

This is about companies choosing to cen-tralize certain functions, but placing them in completely different places to their head office. Swedish refers to internal service units, while English often uses the general term Captive Service Units, but it is really a traditional back-office function, just like a regular bank branch.

Although we live in the internet banking era, the classic bank looks as it always has, with one part of the building consisting of customers being helped in the usual manner by staff behind the counter. In this area there is direct contact between customers and em-ployees. But the bank is, of course, much more than what customers see. Behind the counter there are other offices where yet more employ-ees carry out the work necessary for the bank to operate and give customers the service they need. They take care of billing, administration and, just as in the AIG example, the computer system.

The split is a classic example of what has traditionally been called front office and back office. Front office staff are customer-facing, taking care of their needs and responsible for all contact with them. Back office staff are the

I



ones that carry out the work and ensure that the staff up front actually have something to offer the customer.

The difference is that today companies like AIG have started to relocate their back office departments. Instead of being behind a door at the end of the building, they are now in another city, another country or perhaps an-other continent on the other side of the world. Meanwhile other companies, like Semcon, have opened front office facilities in various coun-tries to get closer to their customers there.

COMPANIES MOVING PARTS of their production abroad to get economies of scale is certainly nothing new. Even if Henry Ford thought that one colour was enough for everyone, most companies have realized that it can be good to have their production near their target market,

in order to be able to adapt their products to meet local standards and requirements.

However, the trend today is not just to move production but also other parts of the busi-ness, with the back office, front office and headquarters in different places in the world, all to take advantage of the special expertise and local resources that are there. This began in the early 80s. During the 90s, thanks to improving information technology, this devel-opment accelerated, and spread to more and more industries in the first decade of the 21st century.

According to the report “Offshoring to China, from workbench to back office?” by Deutsche Bank Research, Asian economic development is one of the most important fac-tors in this trend. Because of this, the propor-tion of people in the educated labour force

has increased dramatically in recent decades, which is one of the key prerequisites for run-ning a successful business. In China alone, writes the report’s author Thomas Meyer, four million people graduate from higher edu-cation annually, and this figure is increasing every year.

In addition, states Meyer, the back-office market is attractive for these countries. “The production of IT services and software is cleaner, consumes fewer resources and is geographically more flexible than industrial production. It provides both attractive career opportunities and better pay for young, edu-cated people,” he writes.

But it is not just economic growth that lies behind this increasingly popular trend.

“The developments in IT in recent years are of course also a key factor in the emer-


costs will be reduced. In addition, as the staff only work on invoice processing, they become specialists, leading to increased productivity, which in turn also reduces costs.

“If there is anything that characterizes in-dustry regardless of branch, it is the hunt for greater productivity,” says Mattias Axelson.

And companies are monitoring progress throughout the industry – if someone starts working in a certain way, you don’t want to miss out:

“Yes, of course, this is the case. It’s like a race. If one starts, the others have to follow to survive.”

But it’s not just the race to cut costs that encourages this development, it is also the pursuit of the highest skills. To survive in a global market, you need the most specialized workforce, and just because you traditionally work in Europe does not mean that the great-est benefits are found there. Quite the oppo-site. According to an analysis by global con-sulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), half a million German engineers will retire within the next ten years, for example. Since there isn’t the time to train that many people, the German automotive industry therefore faces an acute shortage of skilled labour. So it can be very tempting to move as much stand-ardized production as possible to back office facilities in other countries, thereby freeing up capacity at home.

And “other countries” need not actually

gence of this model,” says Mattias Axelson, researcher at the Stockholm School of Eco-nomics.

“This technology makes it possible for people to cooperate with each other in real time, even if they work on opposite sides of the Pacific.”

TODAY, THEREFORE, the structural, economic and technical conditions exist to move not only production but also back-office functions to other countries, or to open a front office in a new country to be able to work closer to an important client. And many companies feel it necessary to do so to keep up with global competition, but what exactly do they gain by splitting the organization into different geo-graphic locations?

Above all, two things: cost benefits and specialization benefits. Thomas Meyer writes

in another report from Deutsche Bank Re-search, “Offshoring work, not jobs”, that whilst the high level of education of the employees in back office in low-wage countries leads to a high quality of work, the main reason for moving parts of operations to Asia is still a matter of cutting costs. AIG moving its call centre to Manila is a classic example, where a relatively standardized process from the old world moves to a low-wage country in Asia. For although those who work at AIG in the Philippines are well paid compared to other workplaces in the country, salaries are still only a tenth as much as those in Sweden and Germany, for example.

The second factor, specialization, affects businesses when they gather functions in a single place which were previously performed in several different places. For example, if all invoices are processed in a single back office,

Mattias Axelson, researcher, Stockholm School of Economics

“The developments in IT in recent years are of course also a key factor in the emergence of this model.”

A GLOBAL TREND – WHICH ALSO WORKS LOCALLY

Moving operations may be about getting closer to important markets, but also about taking over key skills quickly. This was the case for the Swedish company Borö in Kalix. They moved the manufacture of solar cells to Bosnia (closer to their market, craftsman-ship and lower wages) and new production of storage tanks to Motala in southern Sweden, where there were facilities, personnel, and the conditions for effective logistics after the white goods manufacturer Electrolux had closed production in the area.

Where work is carried out in the world is becoming less important. It is about finding the right skills, and Asia, with generally lower wages and more and more people with higher education, is attractive to many com-panies. Eastern Europe is another.

SWEDEN

BOSNIA



The goal for all companies wanting to streamline is increased margins. Com-panies actively moving their back office functions are driven mainly by three reasons: cost reduction, with lower wages

as the main element, is the main aspect. Increased specialization in the company’s various units, with improved efficiency as a result, is the second. Finally, companies look for advanced skills in each area. If

there is, for example, a cluster of talented engineers specializing in the automotive industry around a university or where industry was previously based, new com-panies are attracted there.

WHAT DRIVES DEVELOPMENT?

be particularly low-cost Asian countries. For Western European companies, Eastern Europe is often an attractive choice, partly because wage levels are lower than at home, and partly because of the geographical proximity - it is still not very far away. And in the report “Inshoring to Germany” by Deutsche Bank Research, the authors write that Germany is actually a good example if you want to illus-trate how global businesses are creating new units to take advantage of specialist skills. The American company AMD has moved some of its chip production to Dresden, while the car manufacturers Kia and Honda have R & D de-partments in Frankfurt.

HOWEVER, THERE ARE also companies who start production at new sites in their own coun-tries, to take advantage of local resources and expertise. Instead of moving people, the jobs are moved instead. One example is the small family business Borö in Kalix, on the border between Sweden and Finland. They started manufacturing wood-fired boilers in the mid-1970s, and have over time developed their

business to include storage tanks and solar panels. In 2009 the company had grown so much that management decided to expand its warehousing and production operations - not in Kalix, but somewhere in southern Swe-den. Firstly, the company had moved some of its specialized production to Eastern Europe - Bosnia - a few years previously, because the combination of practical skills and lower wages was a good one. Secondly, the com-pany had more and more solar panel custom-ers in southern Europe. Purchasing materials, then shipping them all the way up to Kalix for manufacture and then straight back down again was, as co-owner Ellinor Rönnkvist gen-tly puts it, not optimal. In addition, Kalix is a small place, and finding all the skills necessary there was not an easy task.

Around the same time the global white goods manufacturer Electrolux had decided to close down production in the old industrial city of Motala in southern Sweden. The facil-ity had several hundred employees, many with the engineering skills that Borö needed, and also a modern production plant. Borö had just

started thinking about locations when their accountant said that Electrolux was look-ing for someone to take over the factory and workers in Motala. After Borö’s management had seen the factory and met the staff, there was, to quote Ellinor Rönnkvist, no doubt about it. The skills were right, the place was right and the infrastructure fitted perfectly with Borö’s production.

Instead of moving the whole of production and personnel to their headquarters in Kalix, they started a new site where everything was already in place.

IN OTHER WORDS, there is much to gain mov-ing one part of a company’s organization to locations outside headquarters. This allows industry to meet their customers where the customers are, labour shortages can be solved by releasing resources and costs can be cut through lower labour costs and increased specialization.

In theory, anyway. For even if an organiza-tion with their back office and front office in different countries looks very effective on

Advanced skills – increased efficiency

Specialization – increased productivity

Cost cutting – lower wages

INCREASING MARGINS


paper, there are many difficulties to overcome before it makes a profit, or even generates the efficiency intended.

Although the units are located in different places in the world, the staff still must be able to work together to some extent to meet cus-tomer demands and deliver what is requested.

“If you do skilled work, there will be prob-

lems, and then the company must ensure that there is some kind of common problem-solv-ing. And the basis of the solution is dialogue,” says Mattias Axelson.

The big question that immediately comes up is how employees, who previously met in the corridor or were at least in the same build-ing, can communicate with each other when

they are suddenly sitting in different coun-tries, perhaps even on different continents?

“When you divide your activities, there is almost always a risk that something that you don’t believe is business-critical turns out to be crucial to the outcome. It is often a case of there being no room for informal commu-nication in the new organization, and it falls

through the cracks and disappears,” says Mattias Axelson.

As an example, he takes an engi-neering company that had a small metal workshop inside its main work-shop. The company’s management wanted to focus on its core business, and to achieve economies of scale moved the small metal section to the other side of the street to free up space inside the workshop. However, just

“It’s technology that makes it possible for people to cooperate with each other in real time.”

Mattias Axelson, researcher, Stockholm School of Economics

HOW DIFFICULT IS IT?Researcher Mattias Axelson talks about two factors that a company must take into account beforemoving any part of their business. One is the degree of interdependence between the units affected by the move, the other the degree of overall organizational complexity. The diagram below is a very simple model which evaluates how much work will be required to get communication - and thus the efficiency of the work - to work between back office and front office.

INTERDEPENDENCE

ORGANIZATIONAL COMPLEXITY

Here, cooperation will be complicated. A lot of focus and resources are required to get things working – it probably requires a joint team of employees from both front and back office to make it work. Generally only done if a project is considered strategically important.

Here collaboration is easily standardized – it possibly only requires a single digital interface for employees to communicate at the right level with each other.

Many projects end up here. Initially frequent meetings are required to get communication to function, but this may eventually become distance communication when you establish a common framework.

→

FOCUS:FRONT OFFICE / BACK OFFICE


Globally Semcon employs a total of 1,600 people in the Automo-tive R&D business area. With

its 900 employees, the German team represents more than half of that busi-ness. Henry Kohlstruck has led Semcon Automotive Germany since March 2010. He has worked in the automotive indus-try for 16 years and joined after 12 years

“Move work, not people!” – that’s our motto

with one of Semcon’s competitors. “Semcon’s front and back offices have

many advantages. In particular, the com-pany’s various offices are a great oppor-tunity to concentrate on skills in a specific area. The way we move work packages back and forth also means that we can take on and carry out major projects with very little external support. In addition,

our employees have the chance to get to know customers elsewhere,” he says.

Basically, there are three different front and back office scenarios: in the first one or two Semcon employees take care of direct contact with the customer, while between four and six people work in the back office at Semcon offices around the country. By sharing data in networks,

money is saved in travel expenses. The second scenario consists of projects concentrated in one place where Semcon has offices. Most of the work happens in this way, for example in Munich. Project support is provided from other Semcon offices in places like Ingolstadt, Bad Frie-drichshall and Wolfsburg. The third form consists of international projects and general optimization of work processes. An example of this is the recurring activi-ties in technical calculation, compiled in Ingolstadt in Germany and shared with Semcon India, where the work is then carried out. Also, customers in countries such as Russia and Ukraine invest in the development processes of the German Semcon engineers.

“The foundation of the front and back office is a well-established IT environ-ment, a common way of looking at work processes, co-ordinated education and training of staff, but also a certain flex-ibility from the employees. Frankly, there are parts of projects that require problem solving beyond what is possible from a back office. Then, employees must be on site,” says Henry Kohlstruck.

For him, proximity to customers is particularly important. This is why they opened an office in Stuttgart in spring 2011 in order to be close to Daimler.

“Customer enquiries at short notice can only be processed quickly with the help of a front office. After the first con-tact, you can expand the chain and get help from other offices. But even a cus-tomer with a strong global profile wants its engineering firms in the vicinity, in the same place. In addition, you should never forget that projects are implemented by people. Therefore, people must know each other and be able to work together. In my opinion, this is the most important success factor of all with the front and back office concept,” he concludes. 1

To meet high customer demands, Semcon works with both front and back offices. “The success of our model depends on several factors,” says Henry Kohlstruck, Country Manager for Semcon Germany.TEXT LINDA KARLSSON ELDH PHOTO NICKE JOHANSSON

Title: Country Manager for Semcon Germany.Office: Semcon Bad Friedrichshall, Germany

Henry KohlstruckABOUT


X xxxxxx 1

At Semcon’s Hungarian office in Budapest, employees are primar-ily involved in producing texts and

product information for manuals. Cus-tomers include several major companies in the telecoms sector, the automotive industry and diagnostics industry. Maria Pataki is Regional Manager and has been

“It should be a smooth operation from start to finish”

since 2007. “We started with nothing and thought

about what kind of structure we should have. We set up a front and back office concept from scratch. We had a lot of meetings, especially with our Swedish and British colleagues. We went through what could be done from Hungary.”

The planning went quickly, but the ex-pansion went, if possible, even faster.

“We grew out of our office and within a few months after starting we found new premises. Nowadays we are at Infopark, a modern district of Budapest, called Hungary’s Silicon Valley because there are a lot of technology companies here.”

At Semcon Hungary’s office, they primarily work with developers, graphic artists and technicians, who are included in every stage of production. The front office, back office concept has become a smart and cost-effective solution for Semcon.

“I think some people were definitely worried when they heard that we were starting to do this in Hungary. This was something new, a low-cost office that would deliver the same high quality even better. However, no-one has lost jobs or assignments elsewhere - instead there has been more and more work all the time.”

Maria Pataki has even done research on the topic and become an expert in what is abbreviated to “FOBO”.

“FOBO became a major international concept about five years ago. But many failed to deliver the promised product. At university, I did a lot of work on FOBO. I found out what could be done better, and what the basic requirements are for you to do it. “

She worked out some essentials. “Communication is the most impor-

tant thing. It should be effective and use the appropriate technology. Today, tech-nology and connectivity are a necessity. Everyone involved - from those who have direct contact with the customer to the person doing the work - must have the right language skills. There are cultural differences between countries, and these should also be taken into account.”

The bottom line of the concept is ulti-mately about personal contact and the final product.

”You have to have the right resources in both front and back office. The right staff, the right skills and guaranteed service throughout. The customer should never notice if we make personnel changes or other changes. It should be a smooth operation from start to finish.” 1

Maria Pataki is an expert at front and back offices. She has even done research on the topic.“Our goal is that customers should always receive the same high quality regardless of where the work is done,” she says.TEXT MARCUS OLSSON PHOTO CSABA JOBBAGY

Title: Regional ManagerOffice: Semcon Budapest, Hungary

Maria PatakiABOUT


Communications and the rapid development of information technology are the engine of the global front office/back office model. “The developments in IT in recent years are a key factor in the emergence of this model,” says researcher Mattias Axelson. But communication is not just about technology. Equally important are common expressions, respect for different cultures and finding the “invisible” lines of communication.

COMMUNICATION – AN ENGINE WITH PITFALLS

X xxxxxx 1


a short time thereafter the company began to experience quality problems in produc-tion. When they analyzed these problems, the management realized that they started at the same time as the metal workshop moved. Upon further investigation, it was found that people who worked in the metal workshop had previously shared changing rooms with the workers in the large workshop. There, the two groups discussed various problems as they first appeared, and were thus able to avoid major disruptions in production. Totally informally, but it turned out afterwards that it had been central to maintaining high quality.

“This illustrates the risks one takes when dividing a business, although this only in-volved a move across the street,” he says.

“There’s always a lot of things that we don’t see, but just because they are invisible to management doesn’t mean they are unim-portant for the business. They will occur, and can be solved, but it becomes much easier if you are prepared for it.

To put it simply, Axelson says that there are two aspects that firms must analyze in order to have units in different places around

the world. The first is the degree of interde-pendence between the front office and back office: that is, how dependent they are on having continual ongoing communication with each other.

“Say that I’m sitting in the front office and get a question from the customer. If there is a low degree of interdependence it’s enough for me to send a question once to the back of-fice and that they deliver an answer for me to notify the customer,” says Mattias.

“Then the risk of misunderstanding is minimal, but it almost requires a situation where everything is completely automated, and the real world is rarely so simple.

The second aspect the company must take into account is the organizational complexity, namely the differences that exist between dif-ferent parts of the company. Even if various departments belong to the same company, there are significant differences in, for exam-ple, culture and values - even the words you use can mean different things if those saying them come from another department.

“I once studied two European aircraft manufacturers who were going to take part in

a joint project. Even though they came from the same industry and used the exact same terms, they discovered after a while that they had been talking at complete cross-purposes. They had simply attached different meanings to words, which led after a while to them hav-ing to start over and start to define what dif-ferent terms meant to each other. Just as they needed to standardize processes, they needed to standardize their language in order to work together,” explains Mattias. WHAT WILL HAPPEN in the future is difficult to predict, but it is quite clear that global organi-zations with back office and front office in different parts of the world are here to stay.

“Companies will become better at seeing which parts of the organization they can have where. Some activities which are currently classified as back office will move back, after noticing that it is business critical to have them close to headquarters. Other things will be standardized and therefore be suitable to have in the back office. There is a lot left to do, but future competitiveness will depend on how well the company handles these issues.” 1

DIFFERENT CULTURESDifferent cultures – but the same goal!Facilitating local work by respecting local culture is an obvious factor. It is equally important (for example regarding the meaning of words) to create a common working culture within the company, where communication is facilitated by using the same expressions.

THE MEANING OF WORDSStandardize the language!Employees with the right language skills are a part of better understanding each other across national borders. But even within the company, words and expressions have different meanings to differ-ent departments. This is particularly important to consider when taking over competitors’ activities or implementing a merger in which different cultures have developed between the companies.

THE INVISIBLE LINES OF COMMUNICATION Try to see the invisible!What is business critical and what isn’t? Often you don’t know until you make a move that turns out to be a mistake. Two units geographically adjacent to each other can create informal chan-nels of communication that enable major quality problems to be avoided. Then a move to the other side of the road can create problems.



COSMIC DESIGN WITH THE VOLVO UNIVERSE


Shanghai, April 2011. Eager anticipation surrounds the Volvo stand at Asia’s larg-est motor show. Journalists and industry experts from around the world crowd round to see and feel the Volvo Concept Universe – Volvo’s first concept car since the Chinese company

Geely took over ownership from Ford. Every-one wants to know how Volvo is thinking as, after surviving the financial crisis, it now faces maybe its toughest challenge in decades: con-quering the extremely competitive Chinese luxury car market.

Minutes before the curtain is lifted, the vol-ume in the hall is deafening. Music is boom-ing from the speakers. People have to shout to make themselves heard in the crowd. Arriving at the podium, Volvo Car’s President and CEO, Stefan Jacoby, describes the Concept Universe as “the next step in the historical develop-ment of luxury Volvo saloon cars ... a glimpse of what buyers can expect from our next large saloon.”

And so.

When the car is revealed things are suddenly silent. The crowd of onlookers stands and stares – apparently in sheer amazement. Above them is a Volvo with lines and design that no-one has seen for at least 40 years: soft, clean, incredibly simple yet brimming with elegance and grace – far from the linear designs that have characterized Volvo cars since the 1970s.

“We are extremely pleased with the result. The purpose of the car was to test how the press and the public would receive our new de-sign concept. And we have succeeded: we have received very positive feedback on the Concept Universe’s three-dimensional and dynamic shape,” says Andreas Nilsson, strategic design manager at Volvo Car Corporation and the man responsible for producing the new car.

THE IDEA OF developing a new concept car started in spring 2010. Geely was about to take over Volvo Cars, Stefan Jacoby had just been appointed the new CEO and chief designer Peter Horbury had recently returned from several years at Ford. In other words, the time was ripe to map out the direction for the next generation of large Volvos. However, future needs turned out to be partially contradictory.

To succeed in China, Volvo needed a large, spacious and luxurious saloon for the rapidly expanding, traditionally saloon-oriented Chi-nese car market. At the same time they wanted a model that could also attract the sportier coupé-oriented European and international luxury car customers.

The solution was something that at least looks like a mixture of both. The Concept Uni-verse is a thoroughbred saloon, equipped with all the comfort and luxury that China’s luxury car buyers demand. It is also both shorter and narrower than its competitors in the same class. With its coupé-like roof and its power-ful look at the back, from certain angles, it can look like a smooth coupé.

“We wanted to test how far we could ‘squeeze’ a saloon by giving the coupé feel without compromising with customers who want a classic big car. From the side it looks sporty, while we’ve added an element from the S60 that gives it a classic saloon shape. We have tried to create a living design that changes character when you walk around the car,” says Andreas Nilsson.

The work itself took off after the summer. Geely’s owner and chairman Li Shufu had vis-

From nothing to a new concept car – in less than 6 months. When Volvo Cars decided to test an entirely new design concept suitable for the Shanghai car show this spring, they gave themselves the toughest test possible. The result was the much talked about Volvo Concept Universe.TEXT TOBIAS HAMMAR PHOTOS VOLVO, ANNA SIGVARDSSON


ited Volvo’s HQ in Göteborg and given some guidance. He had shown a wide-eyed design team at Volvo Cars pictures of the earth, the moon, the Andromeda galaxy and its stars and comets and explained that he wanted the Volvo’s front to radiate the same “infinite” depth of the heavens themselves. This desire was directly reflected in the project name’s connection to the universe.

ANDREAS NILSSON PICKED a team of design-ers and project managers and housed them in a studio in the Volvo Car’s strategic design studios in Göteborg. In order to bring in-dependent outside expertise he also picked three consultants from Semcon in Göteborg: product designer Annika Larsson, surface designer Mattias Niklasson and car designer Jung Hyung Lee.

For Jung Hyung Lee, born in South Korea but educated at the Umeå Institute of Design, the project gave his career a flying start. Just a few months earlier he had started at Semcon and was immediately assigned to the Volvo Cars’ design department in Torslanda.

“One of the first things we had to do in the design team during the early sketching phase

was to go down to the Volvo Museum to study every Volvo over the years. The assignment was not only to look at the big picture but also to look at the details in depth,” he says.

Then the team gathered to brainstorm eve-ryone’s favourite cars of all time. The main fa-vourites were typical soft, sculptured cars like the Jaguar E-Type, Aston Martin, the old-time Ferrari and the classic Porsche.

“It was surprising, but it meant that we started wondering how we could apply this to Volvo. Then someone said that Volvo actually had a 40-year history of making round cars before the 140 series in 1967. So we decided to lean towards this early phase in Volvo’s history and were inspired by classics such as the PV

“We have received very positive feedback on the Concept Universe’s three-dimensional and dynamic shape” Andreas Nilsson, strategic design manager at Volvo Cars

Jung Hyung LeeTitle: Automotive DesignerOffice: Semcon, Göteborg, Sweden

Annika LarssonTitle: Product DesignerOffice: Semcon, Göteborg, Sweden

Mattias NiklassonTitle: Surface DesignerOffice: Semcon, Göteborg, Sweden

and Amazon,” says Andreas Nilsson.The car gradually grew on the draw-

ing board. They decided to build on Volvo’s strong Scandinavian heritage with a design philosophy that breathed simplicity and pu-rity, with dramatic proportions balanced with clear structural elements and details.

The next step was development - a process affected by the fact that the team had only a short time before the car went into produc-tion. Pressures of time meant that the entire development stage was almost entirely digital. There was no time to develop a clay model of the car – instead a Styrofoam model was produced and placed in the middle of the design studio.


Volvo Concept UniverseA new concept car from Volvo Cars introduced at the Auto Shanghai car show in April 2011. The Concept Universe is a large, luxury sedan with a new design that draws inspiration from the sweeping lines of the classic Volvo models. The aim of the car is to test a possible future direction for the next generation of large luxury cars for, among others, the rapidly expanding Chinese luxury car market. The Volvo Concept Universe was produced in less than six months by Volvo Cars’ design team in Göteborg. Semcon contributed as a partner for 3D design, modeling, and interactive solutions.

“It was incredibly intensive work and the working environment was characterized by open communication,” says Mattias Niklasson and gets immediate support from his colleague Anika Larsson:

“Having a design theme that linked Scandi-navia and the universe hastened our work in the design process,” she says.

Mattias’ job was to create 3D models of the car in close cooperation with the rest of the design group. His area was mainly the back exterior, but he also worked with the front and the wheel rims.

“We got sketches from the design team and began to work out rough models of the car. The models were refined afterwards.”

A CRITICAL ELEMENT of the exercise was to design the interior. Since the car was developed with a focus on discerning Chinese luxury custom-ers, who either have a driver or drive them-selves with VIP guests in the back, the idea of designing two separate environments was born - one for the driver and one for passengers. In-stead of the traditional glass wall, they decided to create a strong visual barrier between the driver and passenger environments.

“The interior in the front is darker, more technical and sporty to engage the driver,

while there is more of an embedded lounge feeling in the back, with lighter colours and tones,” says Jung Hyung Lee, who developed many of the car’s interior and exterior details himself.

Something else that stands out with the inte-rior is its purity. All the buttons have disappeared, making way instead for two touchscreens - one for the driver, and one in the passenger seat in the back - from which all the car’s settings can be controlled. A porcelain band with “comet” lights between the screens gives the driver subtle, visual information about when the passenger is changing the settings.

“It’s all about designing and focusing on the user’s experience, in this case enhancing the driver’s and passenger’s experience. We thought conceptually and tried to create obvi-ous wow-factors in the interior,” says Annika

Larsson, who was responsi-ble for patented interac-tive solutions.

“Through the whole design process we were constantly thinking about the passenger’s and driver’s needs. The passenger can create his own environment in the car without being in direct contact with

the driver. They can both communicate through digital internal commu-nication. The driver can create his own environ-ment, for example by dimming the windows or changing the sound set-tings,” she continues.

AND SO, BY the end of the year the car was finished, complete with Italian suiting material on the seats, porcelain details on the steering wheel and gear stick and a ‘floating’ emblem on the grille - a clear nod to the universe-inspired theme. Since April, the car has been shipped around on tours around the world to be

viewed and analyzed by the critical eye of the professionals.

For the team behind the Concept Universe the assignment didn’t just mean tough chal-lenges, but also a lot of new, valuable lessons.

“I’m very proud that we did so well with the almost entirely digital process. We had no ‘checkpoints’ along the way, but in fact went directly from the computer model to the physical production of the car. It worked as well as it did because the team had such great skills,” says Andreas Nilsson, and takes the opportunity to praise Semcon:

“Our cooperation went very well. I appreci-ate Semcon’s expertise, understanding and flexibility and, most importantly, that they are so genuinely interested in consistently delivering the best possible results.” 1

Andreas NilssonTitle: Strategic design managerOffice: Volvo Cars, Gothenburg, Sweden

“Through the whole design process we were constantly thinking about the passenger’s and driver’s needs”

Annika Larsson, product designer, Semcon


The Volvo Concept Universe concept car was unveiled at a car show in Shanghai in April, and has been shipped around shows ever since.

The car’s settings can be controlled by two touchscreens, one with the driver and one in the back seat.

The Volvo Concept Universe has been described as a thoroughbred that looks like a smooth coupé from certain angles.


THE SOLUTIONHOW SEMCON SOLVED A CUSTOMER’S PROBLEM

THE ASSIGNMENT: Daimler was looking for a particularly exclusive interior for a new limited edition of their Mercedes-Benz Actros Black & White Liner truck. The assignment included new seats, door coverings, carpets and a storage tray with a leather finish on the dashboard. Daimler’s goal is to manufacture and supply seats for 500 vehicles over 12 months. The design, quality and comfort requirements are very high.

THE SOLUTION: A prototype team at Semcon in Bad Friedrichshall started production in May 2010. There is a clear feeling of luxury when you get up into the cab. This impression is created by using a climate-controlled comfort seat and leather combined with decorative stitching and an exclusive checked pattern throughout the cab.

THE RESULT: Production of the Actros Black & White started in December 2010 and the first truck was delivered two months later. The truck was first exhibited at the IAA fair in Hannover in 2010 and received an excellent response from its customer base, which has led to follow-up projects and requests for special interiors for the truck markets in Australia and Korea. At the moment the team is working simultaneously on the interior of the next Actros model.

LUXURIOUS COMFORT

TEXT LINDA KARLSSON ELDH


The back of the comfort seat is padded with 3mesh, a special climate material that lets air through. The exclusive leather upholstery is per-forated with a grid pattern consisting of 1.5 millimetre holes to create more acclimatized comfort. “The climatized leather gives a completely different feel to the fabric seats in regular trucks. You don’t sweat in the leather seat - it feels softer and therefore helps your spine,” says Heinz Weber at Semcon in Bad Friedrichshall.

SEAT

The emphasis of the Actros Black & White series is on leather and chromium to create a feeling of exclusivity down to the smallest detail. Therefore, even the storage tray on the dashboard is made of perforated leather, giving an overall impression of exclusivity throughout.

LUXURY MATERIALS

The original order was for five truck interiors per week, which has been revised upwards several times so that Semcon is now completing 15 truck interiors per week.

EXCLUSIVE PRODUCTION

To create a unifying impression, the seat’s checked pattern is repeated in the door, carpets and the shiny leather of the storage tray, with 4 mm stitching and matching thread. Chromium in both the door covering and the storage tray helps create a sophisticated impression in the luxurious cab.

DOOR COVERING AND CARPETS



Q&A ILHAN AKSAYBATTERY RESEARCHER

Batteries are the great stumbling block in the development of electric cars. Batteries are too expensive, and they take a long time to “refuel” - who wants to wait several hours for a car to recharge? However, professor Ilhan Aksay from Princeton University has shown that it’s possible to shorten this charging time dramatically. The trick is the “super material” graphene.

It took only six years before the discoverers of the “super ma-terial” graphene were awarded a Nobel Prize, in 2010. This is exceptionally quick for a Nobel Prize - most of the winners are elderly gentlemen who made their pioneering efforts several decades previously. But then graphene is also an unusual material.

Graphene is incredibly simp-le – it consists of ordinary

carbon atoms in a honeycomb-like structure. Graphene’s uniqueness lies in its properties - it is incredibly thin, incredibly strong and has extremely good electrical conductivity. Inte-rest in graphene is sky-high and the expected applications are in diverse areas. Graphene is expected to revolutionize the electronics indu-

TEXT INGELA ROOS

PHOTOS MARTIN OLOFSSON

stry, reinforce plastics and effectively store hydrogen for fuel cells.

While most graphene projects are still in their infancy, Professor Ilhan Aksay at Princeton University and his colleagues have already developed a completely new electrode material that greatly enhances the capacity of lithium ion batteries.

Battery scientists have long dreamed of using tin oxide as anodes (i.e. positive elec-trodes) in lithium ion batteries. Tin oxide is extremely good at handling lithium ions. The problem is that it is quickly destroyed when the battery charges and discharges. Ilhan Aksay and his collaborators have solved this problem by mixing tin oxide with graphene on a nano-scale. The result is a material that has both the high capacity of tin oxide and at the same time withstands the strains of char-ging and discharging.

I


Q&A RAÚL ROJASARTIFICIELL INTELLIGENS-FORSKARE

the two materials by placing one or two layers of graphene between layers of tin oxide - it becomes like a sandwich structure on a nano-scale. This structure allows us to quickly con-duct electrons in and out of the battery, and therefore charge it quickly. We are confident that our hypothesis is correct to this extent, but our explanation is still incomplete.”

What will this battery mean for the auto-motive industry?

“The transport sector is just one sector that will bene-fit from it. Lithium-ion batteries are used in many different situations. All lap-tops today have lithium-ion batteries and it takes at least half an hour or an hour to charge them. If we shorten the charging time to a couple of minutes it will have a ma-jor impact.”

One of the major draw-backs of today’s batteries in electric vehicles is that they are so expensive. Is your bat-tery cheaper?

“Good question. I am not

involved with the financial issues and can only guess. Graphene will not increase the cost and the battery is not likely to be more expensive than existing ones. But I’m not sure it will be cheaper.”

Is your battery on the market yet?“Not yet. It usually takes a few years from

publishing an article until there is a commer-cial product. The company Vorbeck, who work with Princeton University will, with the Cana-dian company Targray, commercialize our bat-tery material. My experience says it will take two to five years, although business people like to think that it will be next month.”

What remains to be done before the battery can be used?

“Our work has just begun. We started this two years ago and so far we have worked on the anode. But a battery has two electrodes - an anode and a cathode. You could certainly make a battery out of our anode and an exis-ting cathode. But if you really want to improve the battery as a whole, you have to work on the cathode as well.”

Is this the first time you have applied your materials research to battery technology?

“No, we started with supercapacitors. They also store electricity, but discharge the stored

You have developed a battery material with graphene, dramatically shortening the recharg-ing time. How does this actually work?

“I have no definitive answer, but we think it works like this: the tin oxide conducts the ions, transporting lithium ions back and forth within the battery. But tin oxide cannot con-duct electrons. Graphene is, however, an ex-tremely good electron conductor. We combine

Lives: In Princeton, New Jersey, approximately three kilometres from his office at Princeton UniversityFamily: Wife Isabelle Michel-Aksay, from Paris. His son Emre is a biophy-sicist and professor at Cornell Medical School in New York. His daughter Evin is a schoolteacher. He also has three grandchildren.Qualifications: A Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.Hobbies: Hiking and gardeningReads: Nowadays only has time to read technical articles and booksListens to: Classical musicPublished: More than 350 articles and 30 patents. Has been the editor of ten books.

Ilhan Aksay

“The traditional image of ceramic materials is that they are poor conductors of heat and power; that picture is no longer true.”Ilhan Askay, professor, Princeton

FACTS


energy once and very quickly.” What does the future hold for batteries?“To completely get rid of one of the battery

electrodes - it would make them much lighter. The future is very likely in lithium-air bat-teries, where the surrounding air constitutes the battery’s cathode. Lithium and graphene are the active components of the anode. We are involved in the work on materials for these batteries as well. It looks very promising, but it is, as I said, in the future. Currently, the technology is most useful in disposable bat-teries.”

You work at the ceramic materials labora-tory at Princeton. Is graphene really a ceramic material?

“Yes, according to the modern definition. But many scientists are brainwashed into believing that ceramics can only consist of silicates. I started my research career with sili-cates, but you have to keep up with the times. The traditional image of ceramic materials is that they are poor conductors of heat and power, and they should be hard and brittle as well. But that picture is no longer true. I work according to the guidelines of the two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. He defines materials according to their type of molecular bonds. If all the bonds are covalent or ionic, the material counts as a ceramic, and therefore graphene is a ceramic.”

What is it that makes graphene so spe-cial?

“It is a two-dimensional macromolecule, a single layer of carbon atoms. You can use it as a building block for assembling com-posites. You can make hybrid structures that combine the properties of graphene with those of other materials. For example, all polymers are insulators. But by inser-ting graphene – which of course conducts electricity – into a matrix of polymers you get a conductive polymer.”

Can you give some more examples of what graphene can be combined with?

“Rubber. If you put graphene in rub-ber, it also becomes conductive. This is important because many rubber products would otherwise store electrostatic energy. With graphene in rubber, it becomes even more elastic. Tears and cracks are cau-sed by defects in the rubber, and without graphene they rapidly spread. The graphe-ne layers stop the defects spreading, but every little tear also opens up the rubber a little bit and allows for stretching. It works much like an accordion - the material that the accordion is made of is not stretcha-ble, but the accordion is, due to its shape. Graphene plays the same role in rubber.”

What use is there for electrically conductive and elastic rubber?

“Electrically conductive rubber can be used as electrodes. You can also stretch the rub-ber by applying an electric field to it. There is a great need for active materials that can be controlled with electric fields - it is much ea-sier to control electric fields than, for example, mechanical forces.

An electrically stretchable rubber can be used in micro-pumps to move very small and precise amounts of liquid - such as medicines. You can also use it to detect tension. If you can create mechanical stresses in a material by using electricity, the reverse is also true.”

What is the next step in your graphene re-search?

“We have just begun to make long strips of graphene. They are five centimetres wide and can be made more than a kilometre long. The strips are electrically conductive and highly porous. You can infiltrate various liquids into them and use them as electrodes. Or you can cover a surface with them and make the whole surface electrically conductive.”

What triggered your interest in materials research?

“I was born in Istanbul, Turkey and finished high school there. For my university education, I was offered two scholarships by the Turkish

dream advances in nanotechnology3

1 NANOMATERIALS IN LARGE VOLUMESMany nanomaterials have impressive features. The challenge now is to scale up the volume to a millimetre or metre scale

without losing the unique properties. When we have solved this problem, many new nanotechnology products will emerge.

2 SELF-ASSEMBLING PRODUCTSThe biological world routinely creates very complex systems through self-assembly. We created an electrode for a lithium-

ion battery by the self-assembly of graphene and other substances, but it is very modest progress - an electrode is far from a full battery. Can we ever get an entire apparatus to assemble itself?

3 ADAPTIVE MATERIALSLaboratories around the world are researching how to integrate sensors, actuators and a controller in a material on

a nano-scale. Sensors and actuators are relatively easy to integrate into nanostructures, but inserting a control unit must wait until we have learned to build such a device. Once we do that, we can produce truly customizable materials.

Government in 1962 – one, to major in min-ing engineering in Germany; and the second, to major in ceramic engineering in the United States. I did not want to be a mining engineer. Although I did not know much about ceramic engineering, the excitement of coming to the United States was strong enough to push me into ceramic engineering. Thus, ceramic ma-terials was my launching point into the greater world of materials. After earning my ceramic engineering degree at the University of Wash-ington at Seattle in 1967, I went to the Uni-versity of California at Berkeley to get a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering and conti-nued doing research in materials ever since.”

What keeps your interest in materials?”Civilizations have evolved with materials

and will continue to do so as long as we exist. The first materials produced by humans date back about 10,000 to 12,000 years. They were ceramics. Metals and organic polymers came a few millenia later. The approach we have used to produce these materials is akin to the pro-cesses used in the geological world. We pack powders to form shapes and heat them to very high temperatures (> 1,000 °C) to make them stronger by sintering processes. We melt me-tals and polymers to form shapes. This is what our ancestors started with and the fundamen-tal education system in materials science and

engineering, by and large, is still fol-lowing this path. This geological

path has severe limitations es-pecially in the development of nanostructured materials. An alternative path is the one used by the biologi-cal world, which evolves through self-assembly at molecular levels and moves to larger, hierarchically ar-ranged structures. They are adaptive. They are living. Over the last 40-50 years, many researchers around the world have recognized the importance of this path to produce new materials that are impossible to pro-duce by the techniques our ancestors pioneered. I have also become a follower of this bio-inspired process-ing path and have been an active player on this path since the early 1980s. This is what keeps my interest in materials and I see no end to it. This path will guide us to the future.” 1



HEADING FOR NUMBER ONE

a twelve-month period. A total of 7.14 million vehicles were delivered to customers, an in-crease of 13.5 percent compared to 6.29 million vehicles delivered in 2009. VW’s official goal is to increase annual deliveries to 10 million by 2018 and challenge Toyota as the world’s larg-est carmaker. And he and his team are ready to take the company there.

The Westfalia-born engineer has been re-sponsible for evolutionary developments at VW for more than two decades now. In 1985 he joined AUDI AG, where he took charge of the Vehicle Mechanics Main Group within Pre-Development. Here he was responsible for the concept and project management for the Audi 80, A3, A4, A6, A8, TT and A2. He also played a decisive role in developing a simulta-neous engineering structure. He was in charge of the Body Development division at Volk-swagen AG between 1998 and 2002 and, at the end of 1988, also assumed responsibility for Passenger Car Concept Development.

WHEN VW TOOK over Bentley, he was assigned to reorganize R&D for Bentley and to develop the Continental model concept.

In 2002 he returned to AUDI AG, where he was in charge of Body Development, Concept Development and Electrics/Electronics. It was during this time his team developed the “Mod-

ular Longitudinal Design System” (MLB). In 2007 he moved again to the VW brand.

“The strategy of VW is to work with a global architecture when it comes to design and the assembly methods to build a car. The same, global parts are then used to build dif-ferent cars for specific areas. We have a lot of advantages when we use the same methods and the same architecture”, he explains.

The partnership with Semcon started out with aluminum space frame technology. Today Semcon is a complete vehicle develop-ment partner and supports the VW Group in Germany throughout the whole car devel-opment chain. The most recent example of Semcon’s involvement is the new VW XL1 fuel-saving plug-in hybrid, presented for the first time at the Qatar motor show in Janu-ary. The XL1 has received a lot of attention since. No wonder – it may be the most fuel-efficient car in the world. It achieves a very impressive 319 mpg (0.9L/100 km) and emits just 24g/km of CO2. A small series produc-tion could start in 2013. Among other parts, Semcon supported VW with the basic devel-opment of the lightweight monocoque chassis of the VW XL1.

“VW has worked with Semcon as an ad-vanced high-tech partner since I joined the Group in the 1980s,” he says. “It’s important

The VW group’s overall goal to dominate the worldwide auto-motive market was clearly to be seen at this year’s trade show in Geneva. The pavilions 1 and 2 were VW land gathering the

strong brands Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche and Lamborghini.

The VW group’s overall goal of dominating the worldwide automotive market was clearly seen at this year’s motor show in Geneva. Stand 1 and 2 were VW territory, demonstrat-ing strong brands like Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche and Lam-borghini. Ulrich Hackenberg was satisfied with the great attention that surrounded showcased models such as the new Golf Cabriolet – the first since 2002.

“We got a lot of attention at the stand from the media and our competition. For VW it’s definitely a great trade fair,” said Dr. Hacken-berg, Member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen brand, responsible for “Devel-opment”.

There is no doubt that VW is currently riding a successful wave. Europe’s largest carmaker had a fantastic year in 2010. The Group significantly improved on previous years’ vehicle deliveries, handing over more than seven million units for the first time over


Strong partners are important for Volkswagen (VW) to become the largest automotive company in the world.We met Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen brand, responsible for“Development”, at the 2011 Motor Show in Geneva this March who talked about the car industry of the future and the 30-year long partnership with Semcon.

a twelve-month period. A total of 7.14 million vehicles were delivered to customers, an in T

he VW group’s overall goal to dominate the worldwide auto

and the 30-year long partnership with Semcon.TEXT LINDA KARLSSON ELDH PHOTOS GLENN LINDBERG


The Volkswagen Bulli Concept car was presented at the Geneva motor show

and is the modern version of the classic VW van of the 60s and 70s.

Ulrich Hackenberg wants to create good-looking

cars at affordable prices.

Ulrich Hackenberg along-side the concept car that runs solely on electricity.

Semcon on site. Left to right: Stefan Olsson, head of the Automotive R&D business area,Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, member of the board of the VW Group, Semcon’s CEO Kjell Nilsson and Henry Kohlstruck, Country Manager for Semcon Germany.

The annual motor show in Geneva this year was held between 3 and 13 march.


Volkswagen XL1The new Volkswagen XL1 is a super-efficient hybrid prototype vehicle and is said to be “the most economic vehicle in the world”. It’s powered by an 800 cc two-cylinder diesel engine and an electric motor. The battery can be charged by plugging it into a normal household electrical socket, but it is also charged during braking. The vehicle can travel up to 35 km in pure electric mode before the diesel engine cuts in. The XL1 hybrid consumes 0.9 liters per 100 km (313 mpg) and CO2 emissions are 24 g/km. It can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 11.9 seconds, and its top speed is electronically limited to 160 km/h (99 mph). (Read more on pages 30–31)

that the engineers find the right language among themselves to create confidence and work together.”

For Dr. Hackenberg the biggest challenge for the future is to create interesting cars with attractive designs at reasonable prices and low production costs supported by a strong dealer network and excellent customer care.

“If you want to be number one you have to optimize everything. You don’t have to be the best in every category, but you have to be the best in overall,” he says.

Customers are getting more and more di-vided and thus more car segments and new concepts are entering the market.

“If you look back a few years there were per-haps six or seven large segments. Today there is a huge matrix of various vehicle sizes, from mini cars and different family cars to MPVs and SUVs,” says Dr. Hackenberg. “We are look-ing very intensively into which of the many new body style concepts have a future. But we have to look carefully because Volkswagen is a big volume producer. We’re not interested in doing limited editions.”

He explains that VW’s philosophy is to make the car support the driver as much as possible without taking away responsibility from him.

“In the near future there will be more intel-ligent technologies making driving even more comfortable and safer by taking certain tasks away from the driver. Assistance systems will make driving easier in several ways, like cor-recting minor driving errors, keeping the car safe on the road and also offering improved in-telligent communication technologies inform-ing and guiding the driver along better routes. But our philosophy is to never interfere with the autonomy of the driver. The driver re-mains behind the steering wheel, always in full control of the car,” he says.

The autonomous cruise control systems of last year’s Audi A8 and VW Touareg are ex-amples of this philosophy.

More people, bigger cities, less parking spac-es. One thing is for certain: the automotive companies of the future must take many more needs in account. Volkswagen’s own research

on traffic development in Germany shows that there will be a significant increase in traffic on trunk roads by 2020, particularly in urban con-urbations. The infrastructure in many regions, on the other hand, is aging and cannot keep pace. As a consequence, traffic is denser and more complex. Road works will increasingly become the prime cause of traffic jams.

“Many cities grow, while others don’t have the capacity to expand further because there is simply no space for it. The buildings grow taller and new infrastructure is necessary to maintain the freedom of mobility”, he says.

EVERYBODY WANTS TO be mobile, but the con-text varies in different countries. He points out the climate and the demographic aspects:

“India, for instance, is a warm country with heavy rain storms six months a year so cars there need to cope with both rain and high temperatures. Meanwhile families are often very big and they don’t have much money. Therefore the market needs cars with lots of space on a small budget. The US on the other hand is a huge country with lots of space and customers want big cars. The same goes for China, where customers still mainly belong to the very rich segment.”

“There are only one or two cars in the whole world with global character. The VW Golf is one of them. It’s a car that works all over the world, but the focus shouldn’t be to build a global car. You need to analyze each country and their demands in order to create the per-fect car for it”, he adds.

For VW as a global company with more than 60 production sites worldwide, outsourcing is important. Since the company produces parts locally, engineering capacities are needed in all regions. There are more than 25,000 people working in R&D centers around the world, half of them involved with the VW brand. For instance in the company’s “second home mar-ket” China, there are two large engineering centers – partners

who are not only able to develop parts, but also entire cars. In 2010 deliveries grew by 37.4 per cent to 1.92 million vehicles.

Other markets are more challenging – Rus-sia is one example. Here the supplier network is weak and too many parts need importing from Europe or other countries, which causes high logistical costs and makes production there much more expensive than in countries like China or India. There is also a lack of local engineering capacity in the country.

“You have large centers like Moscow and St. Petersburg. Distances are vast and the road conditions are poor. The market definitely has potential, but we are waiting for suppliers to settle there. We simply need skills, know-how and resources at a local level”, he says.

IN THE AUTOMOTIVE industry there has been a trend towards consolidation in the field of engineering services over the past few years. That is also noticeable in the VW Group. VW recently acquired ItalDesign and former Kar-mann, now called Volkswagen Osnabrück.

“There is a tendency to increase exper-tise and capacity within the company. There are several suppliers who now belong to the Group. However, we will not be able to do eve-rything ourselves. We will therefore also need our third-party suppliers in the future,” he says and points to Semcon as one of the most reliable partners.

“With Semcon we don’t have to say ‘do this or do that’, which makes the work very ef-ficient. Therefore we consider the company to be more than just any partner”, he concludes. 1

Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg

“ In the near future there will be more intelligent technologies making driving even more comfortable and safer.”

optimum streamlined body shape. In the XL1, which is the 3rd evolutionary phase, driver and passenger sit side-by-side. For Holger Bock, project manager at VW for the XL1, adapting the bodywork for everyday use was one of the biggest challenges of the project. The transi-tion from a pure hybrid to a plug-in hybrid, weight optimization and improved CW values were also important stages of development.

“It’s thanks to the engineering skills of the team that we’ve succeeded in creating the most efficient car in the world, something that was a real technical challenge,” he says and continues.

“We’ve smoothed off every corner of the car

and made acceptable compromises with every nut and bolt. The team has done an outstand-ing job.”

The XL1 has been christened by VW as its technological flagship. The car already meets the targets set by the automotive industry for 2050 to cut CO2 emissions by 90 per cent.

SEMCON HAS BEEN PART of the project in concept development since 2008. Semcon has been in-volved in everything from bodywork develop-ment, including the exterior and interior, elec-trics and electronics and functions concerning the car as a whole.

“Calculations and simulations were special-

T he story of the XL1 began in 2002 when Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Piëch, chairman of VW’s central board, formulated the aim of creating a car with an average fuel con-sumption of 1 litre per 100 km

and taking it into series production. To con-vince shareholders that this was possible he drove from Wolfsburg to Volkswagen’s AGM in Hamburg in a prototype.

THIS FIRST PROTOTYPE was further developed and presented as the VW L1 in 2009. In both the 1-litre car from 2002 and the L1 the passenger sits behind the driver in order to create the

XL1Holger Bock, technical project manager at Volkswagen, and Ulf Schönemann, head of Semcon’s office in Wolfsburg, tell us of the challenges of developing the VW XL1, the 1-litre “car of the future”.

XL11-litre “car of the future”. TEXT LINDA KARLSSON ELDH PHOTOS VOLKSWAGEN


ly important in this early development phase to ensure that individual components and the vehicle as a whole worked properly and for safety to be guaranteed,” says Ulf Schönemann, head of Semcon’s office in Wolfsburg. The ma-jority of this vehicle is made from carbon fibre CFK, which is a much more complex material than metal because there are many more vari-ations of material behaviour during manufac-ture. It was a real challenge, which also made this project especially exciting for us,” says Ulf Schönemann.

The XL1’s extreme compactness, combined with first-class, innovative technical equip-ment and such light weight mean constant new

challenges for the development team. The XL1 provides passengers with an unexpected roomy feel and at the same time a very sporty touch.

“It was extremely difficult to achieve the geometric set-up so that everything fitted into the space provided while remaining functional and keeping the weight to a minimum. The importance of keeping air resistance really low was also something that constantly provided us with limitations that we were forced to adhere to so we didn’t negatively affect fuel consumption,” says Holger Bock.

“When you bring together new technologies in this way and work in a way that spans many different specialities it’s unavoidable that you find yourself in conflicting situations and faced with difficulties. Semcon has probably learned a lot along the way. We’ve meanwhile also appreciated the cooperation a great deal as the Semcon team are incredibly flexible,” he adds.

BECAUSE SEMCON ALSO builds prototypes it was also responsible during the project for developing assembly platforms as there were no existing platforms suitable for developing a vehicle like the XL1. They used a very light vehicle whose bodywork, like the XL1 con-sisted of CFK, a material that’s extremely stiff and lightweight. It’s used for example in F1

race cars. The car weighs 795 kg and is there-fore much lighter than other cars, a factor that plays a crucial part in keeping fuel consump-tion so low.

Apart from ordinary development and working on the looks of the vehicle, Semcon was also involved in other parts of the project, such as being on hand for monitoring test drives and events such as the unveiling of the XL1 in Qatar.

FOR VW THE XL1 is a milestone on the way to establishing a new perspective. The company aims to enter the future with a differentiated product portfolio. There won’t be just one car but whole vehicle concepts with differ-ent drive systems. In urban environments, cars powered by electric batteries will become more popular. Combined with “swarm power” – regional mini power stations that communi-cate with one another – zero emissions will be possible. For customers that drive longer dis-tances the plug-in hybrid will play an impor-tant role. Downsizing of engines will therefore be very important.

“The challenges for the 1-litre engine will keep us busy in the future too. We’re currently supporting VW to further develop the project and it’ll be exciting to see what tomorrow brings,” Ulf Schönemann concludes. 1

“We’ve smoothed off every corner of the car and made acceptable compromises with every nut and bolt.” Holger Bock, technical project manager at Volkswagen



Volkswagen wanted to create a car for young Brazilians. The result was the Saveiro Rocket, an unusually sporty pick-up. Volkswagen asked Semcon for help to create the car. asked Semcon for help to create the car. TEXT PER GREHN PHOTOS VOLKSWAGEN

It was during the 26th motor show in Sao Paolo, Brazil, last year that Saveiro Rocket was put on show for the first time. The car’s pearlescent paintwork, glossy black roof and red stripes got it the attention it deserved.

“We wanted to create a sporty two-seater based on a small pick-up in order to give young people the opportunity of affording a sports car,” says Kai Hohmann, engineering executive

manager at Volkswagen in Brazil.Volkswagen’s team started the project with

the premise that many drivers of compact pick-ups see them as sports cars. There is particular interest for this kind of vehicle in Brazil, espe-cially among young drivers looking for an unu-sual and exclusive-looking car. The problem is that these vehicles are often very expensive.

With the Saveiro Rocket, Volkswagen wan-ted a concept car that strengthens the sporty

pick-up trend, while being affordable for young people.

“We were in charge of the electrical compo-nents and developed electronics for the lights, sound system, radio and navigation system. The cars have some similar applications to ordinary cars but in this case there is new tech-nology,” says Rodrigo Cameiro, project manager at Semcon.

The development work only took a couple

SPORTY PICK-UP FOR YOUNG BRAZILIANS


of months. This was a tough challenge for eve-ryone involved. But both Kai and Rodrigo are very pleased with the cooperation involved in developing the Saveiro Rocket.

“Volkswagen is an excellent partner. They trusted us to use new technology and I believe that we have established a great relationship with them,” says Rodrigo.

“Every time I see the car I feel proud of the work we’ve accomplished,” he continues. “It’s

great getting your work presented in this way.” According to Kai, Volkswagen chose to coo-

perate with Semcon partly because the compa-ny had already worked successfully with them in Germany and partly because the company knows Volkswagen’s processes inside out.

“We were determined to demonstrate the best possible technical performance in this car, which is exactly what we did,” says Kai Hoh-mann. 1

OTHER TECHNOLOGY USED• Radio with reverse camera and navigator display • Custom sound system• Blinkers in rear-view mirrors• Dual rear parking sensors (bumpers and tailgate)• Auto open tailgate• Multifunctional steering wheel• Feet illumination• Lowered suspension• Black 18 inch wheels• Sporty seats

“We wanted to create a sporty two-seater based on a small pick-up in order to give young people the opportunity of affording a sports car.”

Kai Hohmann, engineering executive manager at Volkswagen in Brazil

SMART LIGHTING SYSTEMSemcon developed a number of smart lighting systems for the Saveiro Rocket, including:

DRL DRL (Daytime Running Light) is a daylight system aimed at enhan-cing safety using powerful LED lights and Light Strings.

XENON HEADLIGHTSPowerful Xenon headlights and a new headlight wiper system were designed to meet legislative demands.

CORNER LIGHTSwitching on the indicators or slightly turning the steering wheel activates powerful lights when cornering. The lights light up the nearby road surface in cor-ners up to five metres away from the vehicle. .

The six gear, 1.4 litre turbo petrol engine, generating 122 horsepower.

Kai Hohmann, engineering executive manager at Volkswagen in Brazil and Rodrigo Cameiro, project manager at Semcon.

TEXT LINDA KARLSSON ELDH, CAMILLA HENTSCHEL, MARCUS OLSSON

PHOTOS KALLE SINGER, FRANK LINDERS, SAM LEE

SEMCON BRAINS


BEHIND THE SCENES AT SEMCON BRAINSThe design department in Munich develops models for many different manufacturers. Oliver Vogt talks about the design team, what they do and what it’s like to work for Semcon at www.semcon.com.

The 3D experts


Under the leadership of Oliver Vogt, Semcon’s design department in Munich creates 3D models of all sorts of vehicles - from two-wheelers and small cars to large luxury limou-sines. Up to 18 product designers from around the world work at the Semcon studio, on design projects commissioned by well-known car manufacturers.

“We’re experts at creating surfaces. We help customers transform their design visions into three-dimensional models. The challenge of our job is creating an emotional product that tens of thousands of people will come to like later,” says Vogt. With a lead time of up to 90 months before SOP (start of production), the team needs to have a great sense of vision and good understanding of how design is chang-ing and evolving in the future. Oliver Vogt says that extreme time pressure and tight dead-

lines are commonplace. “With clients, there are a variety of groups

that have to be satisfied with our work, includ-ing aerodynamics and crash experts. Most im-portant, of course, is the design department. They expect us to react quickly and flexibly. Therefore, we always assume we’ll get the required information very late, so we have very little time to complete a project.”

Most of the work is project-based and takes place in their own studio. They work inten-sively on their own innovations, in order to be well prepared for future developments.

“Together with a partner, we are currently working on augmented reality - combining digital models with reality. Developing innova-tions of this kind is our way of standing out from the competition as pioneers,” says Oliver Vogt.

DESIGNERS: NICOLE JACOB, FERDINAND GLEISNER, DINO MEERMANN, LORENZ LOEW,SIMON HOLZMAN, LEOPOLD SCHEGK, OLIVER VOGT, NIELS STEINHOFF, DARIO GAGULA,SEMCON, MUNICH, GERMANY


Micaela Boman is a civil engineer and works for Semcon in Germany.

For two years, she has had Daimler Trucks as a customer.

“It’s a long and exciting project where we are involved in the whole process of the development of injection systems for truck engines.

She works in a team with three people from Semcon and staff from both the

supplier and customer sides.It’s a long project that is scheduled for

completion by 2013.“It’s a fun job with many different

aspects. We have had the opportunity to participate in the entire development process and have designed various com-ponents, from fuel lines to the casting and cutting components.

On the project, she has worked with

Semcon employees and people who come in temporarily at various stages of the development. Right now, she is help-ing her replacement, who will take over from her when she is on maternity leave. The plan is for her and her boyfriend to move to Sweden in the autumn.

“At first, he’ll have to be at home with the baby while learning the language.”

She has learned German and thinks it’s

going very well. Now, instead, it’s time to dust off her Swedish technical terms.

“I am not a hundred percent sure of the Swedish expressions but I can learn on the job. I’ll take one step at a time.”

What she has appreciated most about the project is its versatility.

“It’s been interesting to be involved throughout, from developing the proto-type to mass production.”

MICAELA BOMAN, CIVIL ENGINEER, SEMCON, STUTTGART, GERMANY

The engine expert


What appears difficult should be simple. Emma Sweet has this as her assign-ment at Jaguar Land Rover in the UK. In her work she collaborates with people in practically the entire production chain. Everyone from engineers and designers to sales staff. The goal is to simplify the “Hard To Operate” features of Jaguar Land Rover’s cars.

“Some things don’t always seem in-

tuitive to the end user, and it’s my job to have an impact on the process as early as possible, so the user can easily use our cars and their technology,” she says.

“This might include features like the infotainment system and navigation equipment, or how Bluetooth interacts with the car and how the parking sen-sors work,” she continues. “We develop a manual that shows how all the features

work and how best to use them.”When the manual is produced, tests

are carried out with potential end users in the sales target group.

“The sooner we can identify problems with any HTO features the more quickly we can do to simplify them. At best, we can include them in the manual, create quick-start guides and train sales staff.”

Her work includes constantly keep-

ing an eye on technological develop-ments and the issues that affect user behaviour.

“We are looking forward and planning as far ahead as 2017. We are creating a database of all the information, so that it can be accessible to everyone at every stage in the production chain right up until the keys are handed over to the customer.”

EMMA SWEET, PROJECT MANAGER HTO SEMCON, KINETON, ENGLAND

The simplicity expert

SEMCON BRAINS

SAFE TRACKSFOR SAFE ROADS


used during the spring thaw in 2012,” he says. BiFi stands for Bärighetsinformation genom

fordonsintelligens (Capacity information through vehicle intelligence) and is a joint pro-ject between Semcon, the Swedish Transport Administration, Klimator and Värmlandsåkar-na (the Värmland Association of Road Trans-port Companies). The idea was born in 2006 when Anders S Johansson and his colleague Pär Ekström discussed how information from today’s hi-tech cars could be used.

THEY CAME UP with three interesting areas. The first was ice warnings, the second measure-ment of air pollution and the third area was capacity information. The first led to Semcon developing SRIS (Slippery Road Informa-

tion System), which is mostly based on cars’ electronic stability control, traction control and ABS functions. The measurement of air pollution is still at the conceptual stage, while capacity information has come a long way with the BiFi system, the first phase of which finished in the spring.

Originally the idea was to use informa-tion from the car’s vibration sensor, but since different makes use different sensors, they chose to build their own hardware, which feels the vibrations caused by the road sur-face. The principle is that the harder the road, the more vibrations it causes. The informa-tion is then sent via the mobile network to a database that processes the data and com-bines it with information such as climate,

It is early spring and the snow is melt-ing. It is almost time for the morn-ing meeting at a small haulage firm in northern Värmland. Before the day’s routes are allocated, the supervisor goes to the computer and clicks on a

map of the area. Roads that are drivable that day are marked in green, those that are not drivable are red and those that are doubtful are yellow. After a quick look, the supervisor can then decide how the different routes can be driven.

This is project manager Anders S Johans-son’s vision of how the BiFi system will work.

“So far, we have focused on gathering infor-mation and developing our system. The aim is to have a demonstration product that can be

Each year, the spring thaw causes great problems for professional drivers. Many roads are shut down for weeks despite the fact that they are drivable for part of that time. The Swedish Transport Administration is looking at new methods of estimating road capacity. At Semcon’s initiative, an information system (BiFi) is being developed which displays which roads are passable in real time.

used during the spring thaw in 2012,” he says.

It is early spring and the snow is melt-

which displays which roads are passable in real time.TEXT KARL-JOHAN NYLÉN PHOTOS NICKE JOHANSSON, KRISTOFER SKOG


Anders S JohanssonTitle: Manager, Electrical & ElectronicsOffice: Semcon, Göteborg, Sweden

Linus HelgessonTitle: Design Engineer, Electrical & ElectronicsOffice: Semcon, Göteborg, Sweden

Per WennerTitle: Director, AvailabilityOffice: Swedish Transport Administration

· GPS for positioning

· GPRS modem for data traffic

· External temperature sensor

· Vibration sensor

· SD memory card for logging and settings

· Connects to car cigarette lighter

How the hardware works


surface and geography. It all results in a pre-diction as to whether the roads in the area are drivable or not.

“The best thing is that you can plan when you can drive on a specific road. If it’s been -10 degrees during the night, you can maybe drive on the road until noon. With this information, you can plan transport in a better way,” says Linus Helgesson, project technical manager.

SEMCON HAS DEVELOPED the hardware and in-formation technology for the project, while the knowledge-based company Klimator takes care of the additional information about cli-mate and geography. For example, they note how solar radiation affects different parts of the road during the day in order to find the weakest sections of roads.

Last spring it was time to test the system on a small scale. One problem that Anders faced then was to find someone driving the same route every day, on small dirt roads in rural areas. He found the perfect partner in the Post Office in Värmland, which was interested in testing the technology.

The paperback-sized boxes with vibra-tion gauges were mounted in four rural post vans. The information was then sent wire-

lessly to a database. There, the vibrations were compared with results of test measurements of the roads’ hardness using a dynamic cone penetrometer (DCP).

“Put simply, it strikes a dart into the ground using an 8 kg weight. Then you measure how far the dart goes into the ground with each strike to determine how hard the material is at different levels,” explains Linus Helgesson.

Semcon looked for partners at an early stage. One of the first they turned to was the Swedish Transport Administration. There, Per Wenner, director with responsibility for ac-cessibility issues, was a key contact person.

“This project was clearly of interest to us since the Traffic Authority is responsible for the accessibility of the national road network. A system like this could help us streamline our work,” he says.

THE TRADITIONAL WAY to deal with the spring thaw period on low-traffic roads is for the Transport Agency to put up signs showing load constraints on weak parts of the road. This means that only cars can use the road. When the road is considered drivable again it is opened up to heavy traffic. This can lead to up to a five-week shutdown of some roads.

With BiFi, metal signs regarding closed roads can be replaced by a web

service providing daily updated information on the situa-tion. Per Wenner sees several benefits to such a system. Road accessibility increases and the Transport Administration does not have to invest resources informing people about tempo-rarily closed roads.

“The system also provides us with more knowledge about road statuses, which allows us to tailor our activities and thus get more accessibility for our money,” says Per Wenner.

Anders S Johansson thinks it’s good that the Transport Administration has been in-volved in the project from the start and that Per Wenner sits on the steering committee.

“The Transport Administration is one of the parties who could ultimately use the technology. It is therefore extremely impor-tant that they be involved in developing the tool so that it meets their needs,” he says.

Per Wenner similarly thinks that observ-ing the process has been important, and believes that the cooperation with Semcon has worked very well. There has been a close dialogue between him and the Semcon em-ployees and he feels that they have listened to his views.

“The Transport Administration is not an actual customer in this case. We see ourselves more as a partner that can help in solving an important problem,” he says.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF the information system is continuing and is now in its second phase. The Transport Administration is just one of the interested parties. The forest industry also has a lot to gain from the system. Ac-cording to their calculations, they estimate that additional costs due to lack of capacity in the public road network amount to between SEK 500 and 600 million per year.

“Road capacity is an area where there is a lot of money to be saved in both road main-tenance and the forestry industry. With this system, they can cover a large area at a low cost,” says Anders S Johansson. 1

About BiFiBiFi stands for Bärighetsinformation genom fordonsintelligens (Capacity information through vehicle intelligence). The project started in 2010 and is a collaboration between Semcon, the Swedish Transport Administration, Klimator and Värmlandsåkarna. So far in the project, the various parties have put up half of the capital while Vinnova, the Swedish innovation agency, has contributed the other half. The current research funding will last until 2012.

“If it’s been −10 degrees during the night, you can maybe drive on the road until noon.”

Linus Helgesson, design engineer, Electrical & Electronics, Semcon, Göteborg


SEMCON UPDATEWHAT’S HAPPENING IN SEMCON’S WORLD

AS PART OF THE Formare project, employees at Semcon in Brazil have been teaching young people in their spare time, whose lives have gone off the tracks. The project is run by MAN Latin America, a Semcon customer, along with the Iochpe Foundation, and since 1999 more than 140 students have received free education.

“We help young people develop their skills, but above all, we give their lives meaning,” says Fernanda Ribeiro de Castro, who teaches basic workplace safety at MAN

once a week. Another Semcon employee involved in the project is

Fernando Barbosa, who teaches mathematics to a class of 16 students.

“We help people who are still growing as people, but have no opportunities in life. They need good role models, which they might not find in their own social environment,” he says.

Felipe Rodrigues da Silva is an ex-student of the

programme. Today he works at Semcon and has himself begun to teach.

“Now I’m giving back what I have learned. It’s a way of thanking them for the opportunities I received as a student,” he says.

“I’m working as a product analyst, and it’s thanks to the commitment and experience of the Formare volun-teers. They’re always willing to teach anyone who wants to learn,” says Felipe. 1

Education gives new opportunities for young people

Education project participants with their teachers (in blue).


Semcon India has received an award from the Institute of Economic Studies (IES), for “an outstanding performance in the field of the country’s industrial development”. Kishore Kumar Gattu from Semcon’s Indian of-fice also personally received an award in the same category. The award was presented in New Delhi in June.

Award for Semcon India

Sign up for our free seminar series on FOBO, which is about how FOBO provides benefits to our customers within product infor-mation. The seminars will be held in October in Lund, Göteborg and Stockholm. Read more at semcon.com/foboseminars.

Sign up for FOBO seminar

Quality Excellence is a new concept towards the life science industry. The aim is to offer cus-tomers a guarantee that what is delivered meets existing regula-tions and standards. The idea is that Semcon will be able to guar-antee Quality Excellence in several areas - everything from validation to product registration support.

New concept ensures quality for customers

For the third consecutive year Semcon in Göteborg acted as host when the Umeå Institute of Design presented a selection of educational projects. Something new this year is that the cooperation between Semcon and the Design Institute has expanded to include the supervision of students, in both teaching and actual customer projects. This year’s event, at which both undergraduates and postgraduates presented their projects, was held at Semcon’s head office in mid-June.

Umeå students presenting in Göteborg

Semcon is expanding its services in Germany and is now offering solutions throughout the whole development process to all rail industry customers. This covers everything from feasibility studies and development, to supporting the launch of full-scale produc-tion. Unlike the competition, Sem-con also offers air conditioning, air flow and sound simulation.

More services for the German rail industry

TIME-TRIAL CYCLIST Gustav Larsson, a silver medallist at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, has turned to Semcon to fine-tune his equipment for the 2012 London Olympics.

Through the Swedish Olympic Com-mittee, Gustav Larsson has received help from Semcon in optimizing his equip-ment from an aerodynamic perspective.

The challenge has been to reduce air resistance in various ways, thereby gain-ing time.

“I’m very interested in technology myself. The cooperation with Semcon has gone superbly so far,” says Gustav.

The development work has involved composite experts, computational engineers and design engineers, as well

as people from the prototype centre. Ac-cording to Gustav, the right equipment can determine whether or not you win a race.

“Maybe not one individual detail, but you can gain a few seconds here and there, which can be decisive.”

The first prototypes were delivered to Gustav in the summer. 1

Olympic cyclist improves his times with Semcon’s help

Design exhibition at Semcon’s head office.

Time-trial cyclist Gustav Larsson is fine-tuning his equipment for the 2012 London Olympics with Semcon’s help.


Your global partner in engineering services and product information www.semcon.com

future by semcon

#2 2011

Emma Sweet makes sure Jaguar Land Rover’s

advanced cars are easy to use

1 VOLVO’S NEW CONCEPT CAR BUILT IN RECORD TIME

1 EFFECTIVE DELIVERY WITH A CLASSIC BUSINESS MODEL

1 VOLKSWAGEN WANTS TO BE THE WORLD’S BIGGEST

A MAGAZINE ABOUT ENGINEERING SERVICES & PRODUCT INFORMATION # 2 2011

DIFFICULT MADE

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