AI and Agile Working: Data Management reimagined

Porsche is known worldwide for its powerful sports cars, which impress with their elegance both on the racetrack and on the road. Although designed for everyday use, they offer a unique driving experience – with the legendary Porsche 911 leading the way.

The development center in Weissach has served as the innovation center and think tank for new Porsche projects since 1971 and forms the basis for the brand’s global success. Porsche designs and creates initial prototypes here, tests aerodynamics, safety, acoustics and electronics, and develops new drive systems, steering and chassis systems. The development center combines traditional craftsmanship with modern technology.

In future, managing rapidly increasing levels of complexity and the wide variety of configurations, while also maintaining the exceptional quality standards that Porsche is known for, will also require an even more effective and efficient test and measurement data management system.

Working together with MHP, an almost perfect solution was found in KVM (Konsolidiertes Versuchs- und Messdatenmanagement). This consolidated test and measurement data management solution is a cloud platform in Microsoft Azure based on microservices. Using the platform, Porsche can easily record data and metadata, efficiently manage the storage, administration and analysis of this data across different departments, and keep all of it available at all times, as part of a future-oriented platform strategy.

Data silos were broken down or avoided completely by replacing decentralized drives and servers with centralized Azure cloud solutions. Machine learning and AI can be applied in this improved environment to analyze larger and more complex data volumes, obtain results more quickly and precisely, and provide completely new insights.

This allows new potential to be unlocked and means that as yet unknown risks can be minimized or avoided completely. Employees and developers can focus on their core tasks, as it is straightforward to implement and assure data governance and compliance requirements, data security and GDPR.

A live event was held to increase familiarity and acceptance, which contributed to this positive development and especially to promoting an openness to change. An interdisciplinary, agile ONE team comprising several specialist areas and the Porsche AG and MHP IT departments also helped in this regard. Thanks to these essential steps, the speed to market from preliminary study to productive cloud platform and the provision of the first use cases was less than 18 months.

The use cases cover a wide range of areas, including vehicle acoustics and noise measurement, calibration data measurement, interior emissions, an exhaust gas database, engine test beds and aerodynamics. Instead of focusing additional energy on data management tasks, the innovation center can now concentrate on its core tasks and creative solutions.

This has created the framework that Porsche needs to more quickly and efficiently adapt to future complexity and respond to new challenges. All without compromising quality.