After Jaguar Land Rover was sold in 2008 to Tata Motor, the luxury car manufacturer has focused on revitalizing its business systems to make them more efficient. With this in mind, Jaguar is now planning to use a new data-sharing system to help streamline car development. Over the past couple of years, Jaguar has had to migrate over from the systems used by Ford to one that will be compatible with its new direction.

Technology Used in Today's Auto Design

One of the reasons why it's important for auto designers to share data easily is due to the complexity of today's in-car IT systems. Software is now a major part of auto engineering, particularly as new cars are connected to the internet. New models that you see on Carsales often have their own IP address, serving as mobile wireless hotspots. Safety systems also use electronic and computerized elements, and as we move closer to fully autonomous cars it's important to be able to easily write and share code as part of the design process. For example, a new Range Rover has over 100 million lines of code written into it, which is more than a jumbo jet. Passengers now rely on computerized safety systems and infotainment to access the internet and react to the world as they drive.

Applications Used in Car Engineering

There are a number of computer applications or programs used to design new cars. This includes computer-aided design, computer aided manufacturing, and computer aided engineering systems. In many cases, data is stored separately in each of these applications and then accessed as needed. Although they are semi-integrated, allowing information to pass from one application to the next, this one will take integration a step further. Jaguar's new system will share data to provide a single system providing all the necessary data. The data will reside within each application, but APIs will be provided which allow other applications to access the data when needed.

The integration will be based on OSCL, or open services for lifecycle collaboration. This provides the set of APIs used to exchange data between different applications. Jaguar Land Rover is also working with Dassault Systems and IBM in order to use their system engineering tactics in the design of luxury automobiles. This will help streamline the flow of information used in designing new cars, so that computer aided engineering processes are automated and shared. This helps engineers see how the products are performing, to make them perform better and verify all information.

Jaguar's system is expected to be implemented over the course of the next three years. As technology grows and improves, more manufacturers could use data-sharing devices like this one to help make it easier to keep track of all of the data involved in auto engineering.