Technology @ LEONI

In advanced development, we ensure that LEONI focuses on the key matters with respect to future directions. To begin with, we watch systemic markets and upcoming trends, and we are also always open minded to impetus from within. The accumulated feedback is evaluated from technical, commercial as well as proprietary aspects. We drive promising subjects further forward in agile and international innovation projects.  This involves developers from a wide range of specialist departments, countries and teams forming our agile development teams together with experienced product owners and scrum masters. We work out possible concepts in more depth and make prototypes in multi-week sprints with regular stand-up meetings to synchronize. Our acquired experience and knowledge flows directly into the innovation roadmap, which is a key input for LEONI’s product strategy.
Alongside our in-house projects, there are also customer projects in which we develop the next-generation E/E architecture together with the respective customer and can thereby gainfully deploy our broad understanding of systems.

Our product developers generate a detailed product portfolio with related roadmaps, building on which they take the concepts worked out in advance development further forward. Our product development thereby constitutes the bridge between advance development and series development, taking new developments to the level of being ready for RFQ (the customer’s request for a technical and price quotation). Product development prepares the technical basis for working out a formal quotation. The focus here is on readiness for the market, standardized products and technological building blocks that can be adapted to a wide variety of customer requirements. The team furthermore ensures that the product’s design fulfills the technical specifications and requirements, and that it provides a solid basis for a competitive quotation. The development process involves utilization of expert tools, simulations, and initial validation tests to verify the design to be used. International project teams work in either agile mode or also according to conventional project management procedures. For each development project we assemble teams of experts with specific know-how and differing backgrounds in terms of experience.

Our series development teams form the last stage in the process; they are the most important interface with the customer and are ready to answer any technical questions. Resident engineers reinforce our development teams locally. Series development raises the concepts’ degree of maturity from advance and product development to series production readiness and oversees the products technically through to the end of their run. Meanwhile, we always remain focused on optimizing product costs and on change management. Design for manufacturing and design for automation are nowadays a firm component of the standardized development process. Utilization of standardized tools and expert systems ensures the required excellent quality of data and products.

Our international technical project management department plans and coordinates all projects within the technology field. It is responsible for overseeing technical project performance in terms of costs, time, and quality. We make sure that project targets are met by applying in-house project management governance and standards. Our technical project managers furthermore organize our internal and external technical communication and constitute an important interface with the customer’s development department.

This department is responsible for supporting all activities by providing services related to the product development process.

Among other things, this involves supplying and managing technical product data and documents as well as carrying out advance quality planning during the development phase and ensuring functional safety of the developed products as well as performing simulation / testing / prototyping. Worldwide, our specialists provide support in analyzing customer requirements with respect to having products tested and validated by our global laboratory network. The use of expert and simulation tools is part and parcel of new or further development of products. Here engineers work on, among other things, optimizing and scrutinizing the design, for example with respect to sustainability and the related product carbon footprint.

Stringent product data management, standardized validation tests, simulations and the use of state-of-the-art prototyping technologies ensure standardization in development. An extended evaluation of a cable harness's product properties is performed by means of in-vehicle measurements where they are tested directly on the vehicle in a real-life environment.

The Electronics Development department focuses on the comprehensive development of electronics at LEONI. It primarily works on components for intelligent line distribution within the wiring system. These are used to create a highly available wiring system, which is particularly important for automated driving. Based on the system design, the required hardware and software are developed and then validated. In addition to the development of our own electronic components, components are also developed with a partner until they are ready for series production.