Vibracoustic: Involving customers in development processes
Vibracoustic simplifies complex development processes with a digital portal.
The challenge
Vibracoustic products control noise, vibrations and driving behaviour of cars and trucks. Development takes place individually and together with the vehicle manufacturer. This results in extremely complex processes in which development departments have to work together seamlessly.
Output
In the Cross Innovation Lab, Vibracoustic was able to reflect on its own APQP process (Advanced Product Quality Process) as part of a user journey and identify key levers for greater customer satisfaction and smooth collaboration. This gave rise to the idea of a digital web-based collaboration platform, for which an initial prototype for testing with customers was created at the end of the project with a focus on a specific project phase. With the help of the click dummy and a targeted collaboration platform, past and upcoming tasks, approvals and handovers, among other things, can or could be organised. The information would be made available to Vibracoustic and customers using software and provide an overview of all current statuses, documents and necessary interaction moments at all times. The transparent, structured and intuitively understandable preparation of the information and the visualisation of deadlines and timelines could be used to further optimise development together with the customer.
The concept and prototype were presented internally and will be tested after further preparatory work.
Team: Claudia Friedrich, Anke Günther, Hilke Ludwigs
"The Cross Innovation Lab gave us an outside view of our internal processes, and this perception from a distance visualised interesting aspects."
Format & method
In the Cross Innovation Lab, companies come together in changing constellations over a period of six weeks to work together on product developments in a stimulating environment. Experts from the creative industries are specifically involved in the process.
- Field research: At the beginning, the challenges of the companies are analysed in a new kind of depth in collaboration with creative professionals - and their fresh perspective from the outside.
- Workshop phase: In a total of four workshop/lab days, the companies develop new solutions together with selected creative professionals.
- Feedback loops: Between the labs, a concept review takes place with all participating companies in order to further improve the products through joint feedback and exchange.
In the iterative work process, companies develop new products or product adaptations in a significantly reduced amount of time.
Our partner: Vibracoustic
With 19 locations worldwide, Vibracoustic is the leading NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) expert for the automotive industry and offers customised solutions that provide more comfort while contributing to the efficiency, safety and durability of vehicles. The company develops innovative solutions for the powertrains and chassis of almost all vehicle manufacturers.
