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From practice for practice – Advisory at VAIVA

Theresa Ley,

VAIVA has expanded its portfolio and now offers advisory services and products in addition to engineering. In a series of interviews, we want to present our three business areas in more detail and let our leading minds in the respective areas have their say.

In the last part of our series, we dedicate ourselves to the advisory at VAIVA. Conrad Minow, Head of Business Development, and Andreas Bollinger, Principal Project Manager in Delivery Management, explain where we draw our expertise in this area from and what special approach we are pursuing.

VAIVA has expanded its portfolio and now offers advisory services and products in addition to engineering. How did it come to build VAIVA Advisory and what does it mean for the future of VAIVA?

Conrad: The advisory was created for two reasons. On the one hand, the ongoing project inquiries motivated us to take this step and, on the other hand, the desire to pass on our knowledge that we have learned over time. For our own requirements, we have committed ourselves to a special advisory approach: From practice for practice. Our advisors all have years of experience in series development and advise precisely from this experience. The regular rotations between engineering and advisory ensure that our employees are always involved in current events. For the future, this means that we will consider a strategy for incorporating every topic that is dealt with in VAIVA into the advisory portfolio. This also allows us a certain flexibility in the processing of projects. We can either be involved in the customer project directly through our engineering, but also only via the advisory approach or together with both business areas.

Andreas: At the moment, our advisory business is still in the starting blocks and we still have to grow and gain experience in this area. But for me, it is clearly based on two basic pillars. We have incredible experience in certain subject areas and very competent employees who are able to solve even demanding and complex problems and support our customers beyond the usual engineering tasks and routine processing. At the same time, however, we do not want to build up a classic consulting business and therefore clearly stand out from it simply by choosing the name “Advisory”. The goal is always to develop pragmatic and practical solutions and to help implement them. In other words, not to carry out endless analyses, develop strategies and presentations or implement solutions that only aim for short-term effects without sustainability. To establish the advisory at VAIVA in the future, it will also be important to deal with exactly this mindset.

What is this new business area based on?

Conrad: There are a few topics to mention primarily. In the development of nanoradar functions, for example, our process model has been certified according to ASPICE Level 2. So we know the way to ASPICE Level 2 capability very well. In principle, however, we can of course use the entire APM approach we have developed ourselves for advisory. This allows strategies to be set up for certification according to ASPICE Level 1 or Level 2. However, we can also use it to verify customer-specific process models or tailor our APM to the customer. Our expertise in virtual development, especially in the field of modeling, also feeds the advisory. We have years of experience in building the VPF model and can advise various constructions for the HiL environment. Or we can also pass on our experience in the development of tool chains from creation to use. Another big area comes from verification. From the test specification through the use and development of our specially developed tool VTC, or test automation or test management with the construction and development of customer-specific concepts or the test bench construction. From circuit diagrams to testable test benches. And then we also have our expertise in accident research, the development of human models and passive safety. I could list a lot more here. But the most important thing for all topics is continuity over many years.

Andreas: That’s right. Nevertheless, I would like to add a few topics. On the one hand, the basic in-house series software development according to ASPICE Level 2 and the ISO26262 standard. Then our expertise in questions of software architecture, machine learning or software design. And with a view to functions. There we cover the entire spectrum from pre-development to series development and use various development approaches. From function-oriented to model-based to scenario-based approaches. And our high level of expertise in the field of DevFrOps, which is particularly evident in the development of our own IT infrastructure (especially ISS) or offers tailor-made solutions to problems in our projects. At this point, we would like to mention our principals, our experts. For their respective specific subject areas, they are innovation drivers, contact persons and lead the way with their expertise.

How does the VAIVA Advisory work?

Andreas: You can see from the points already mentioned. The range of potential topics that we want to serve with our advisory is very wide. Therefore, it is difficult to define a general and universally valid procedure. But the advisory always focuses on solving a specific problem. And this is where our work steps come from. At the beginning, together with the customer, there is the clarification of the problem. Here, the initial question and the problem to be worked on are clarified, for example support in establishing a process-oriented way of working. The problem is then analyzed. Questions here are, for example: What is the starting point and the environment, what are the causes of problems, which aspects and boundary conditions have an influence (e.g. through interviews and ASPICE gap analyses). The next step is to develop a solution. Here we bring together our VAIVA expertise with the insights gained in the analysis to develop a tailor-made and practical solution and define it together with the customer. Then it is time to implement the solution. Here we help to implement the solution at the customer’s site. Our aim is above all to provide “help for self-help”, i.e. primarily to instruct, but to leave the operational steps to the customer himself (e.g. coaching and training in processes and their application). As a final step, the solution is also checked. At this point, we check again whether our solution has been successfully implemented and whether the goal has been achieved. If this is not already the case, additional measures are required. A high level of customer satisfaction is very important in all our business areas. In the advisory business, however, we sell premium service, so in the end a satisfied client is particularly important here.

How can the entire portfolio benefit from VAIVA Advisory? And does this also apply vice versa?

Conrad: VAIVA’s portfolio benefits significantly from this business, as it gives the individual areas greater visibility and thus allows customers to get to know our portfolio through advisory. So it can be an entry point. Due to the enthusiasm of the customer from the advisory, a joint engineering project can be created in the best case. Also important. The more we deal with future topics in the advisory, the better we can derive engineering projects with the customer, as well as further development potential for VAIVA.

Andreas: In addition to the portfolio, our company and our employees themselves can also benefit from the advisory. Because many skills are required here that help us in other business areas or customer situations. At VAIVA, we always focus strongly on the technical and content-related aspects of our work. In addition to the technical basis, advisory is also about “look and feel”. You can learn a lot from this and use the skills you have learned elsewhere. For example, how I can determine customer needs as precisely as possible and develop tailor-made solutions for them.

Last but not least, a personal assessment. What does the portfolio expansion mean for VAIVA? Will it be even more exciting to work here? 😉

Conrad: The expansion of the portfolio to include the new Advisory business area opens new opportunities for us at VAIVA in terms of workplace design. This is extremely attractive for existing employees, but also for new ones. In other words, you will be able to work more and more hybrid in VAIVA, switching between engineering projects and advisory projects. This makes working at VAIVA even more exciting and there is significantly more room to develop oneself and work together with our customers on the safety of tomorrow. Bastian: The portfolio expansion offers an exciting and dynamic future. It opens new opportunities for us that make our work even more varied and interesting. The combination of engineering, advisory services and products enables us to offer holistic solutions and further strengthen our position as a leader in the automotive industry. We are building up much greater resilience to market influences than before. So it will definitely be even more exciting to work at VAIVA as we are constantly finding new ways to drive innovation and delight our customers.

Andreas: Advisory requires some special skills or at least focuses more on them than classic engineering. For employees, this gives them the chance to try their hand at this and to continue to grow with new challenges. In addition, the advisory supports us in further strengthening our self-image as a first-class development partner in the VW Group.