Helping Automotive Companies Enhance their Innovation Pipeline

20 Years Scouting Experience in Automotive

The Automotive industry was among the first users of NineSigma open innovation services, our first projects in automotive were in 2002. Each year 10 to 15% of our projects are for the automotive sector and we have successfully completed over 800 projects for automotive companies.

It is interesting to observe how technology requests change over the years, some topics, such as sensing and reducing NOx, remain current today. In last 2 years the hottest scouting topics were around digitalization, hydrogen, sustainability and e-mobility.

To illustrate our scouting requests of our clients, we selected examples of open innovation projects related to EV fast charging, batteries, special materials and electronic technologies used to overcome challenges in automotive applications.

Make sure to read more about the projects here: Uncovering new technologies in EV charging.

Expert Opinions Enhance Innovation Decisions in Automotive

One of NineSigma’s innovation platforms, OI Council, allows our client to reach out to external industry experts and ask questions about a specific topic or problem.

Over past 20 years NineSigma has seen how much larger the innovation portfolio of our clients in automotive industry have become. The speed of new product development has become a real pressure, driven not only by the customers, but also by regulations.

Global companies seek opinions of external experts very early in the innovation management process to get more insights and to test or validate their plans. Here are two recent examples from automotive sector.

Blockchain: One of NineSigma’s clients wanted to understand how blockchain will affect the automotive manufacturing business and if there were blockchain technologies the automotive industry should adopt. Via OI Council the client received several interesting opinions and insights how blockchain could add value to their business in P2P transactions, simplifying supply chains and improving part reliability.

Quantum Computing: Another client sought what would be the most significant impact of quantum computing on the automotive manufacturing industry. Through the survey conducted and additional interviews conducted by NineSigma different advised how this would accelerate designs and materials development, assist in advanced automated driving and optimization of manufacturing and logistics.

If you are still looking to expand your research topics, this might be a good opportunity to ask more questions and possibly uncover some topics and areas of interest that could transform your business.