To ensure a successful transformation of the German automobile industry, the BMWK is planning to create 11 different content-specific hubs with an investment of 50 million euros, including the Transformation Hub for Automotive Software Engineering project (TASTE). This project originated from a funding announcement titled “Development and Implementation of Transformation Hubs for Supporting the Transfer Process of Automobile Industry Value Chains”. The BMWK is financing the project with a total investment of 3.8 million euros within the framework of the “Future Fund for the Automobile Industry” program.
The Research Institute of the Free State of Bavaria for Software-intensive Systems will bring its extensive experience with the automobile industry to the project. With its Center for Code Excellence (CCE) field of competence, fortiss will be responsible for the area of software component development and testing. The institute will also establish a showcase location for the hub in Munich and serve as a regional point of contact in Munich and Bavaria.
Fostering a software development culture
The long-term goal of the TASTE project is to establish software development as a strategic first-level topic in the automobile sector. The hub is designed to act over the course of the project as an incubator and multiplier for advanced software development methods and strengthen the expertise of the automobile sector in terms of integrating software across the value chain and during the product life cycle. This approach is also intended to establish a long-term software development culture within the entire industry.
The automotive software engineering transformation hub will close a gap in the German automotive industry’s expertise and networking landscape. Software development is antipodal to the established engineering domains in automobile manufacturing and is reflected neither in the supplier structures nor in the various industry associations and committees.
Automotive software engineering – strength in numbers
The research partners in the project include the Research Center for Informatics (FZI), the German Aerospace Center (DLR Institute Systems Engineering for Future Mobility)), fortiss GmbH (Research Institute of the Free State of Bavaria for Software-intensive Systems) and the Research Center for Vehicle Technology (NFF) at the University of Braunschweig.
With their locations in Karlruhe, Oldenburg, Munich and Braunschweig - in conjunction with the closely-networked nationwide partner ITS mobility e.V. - the partners effectively cover all regions of the German automobile sector. As experts, they furthermore enjoy direct access to the latest developments in technology and research in the field of automotive software engineering.
