Bringing the Future Closer:
The 2007 Daimler Research Awards
The 2007 Daimler Research Awards
1st Place - Process innovations: Diagnostic Design Concept
The electrically operated trunk lid won’t open — and the culprit is a wheel sensor belonging to the Electronic Stability Program (ESP). Sounds implausible?
Well, it isn’t. This admittedly rare but certainly conceivable fault is Valentin Adam’s favorite way of illustrating the complexity of today’s vehicles and showing how completely separate functions can have an influence on one another. As he says, “For some functions, up to 20 different control devices communicate with one another.” In the example above, a defective radar sensor indicates that the wheel is turning, although the vehicle is in fact perfectly stationary. The control unit of the electrohydraulic catch for the trunk lid has no reason to mistrust this ESP signal and therefore blocks the driver’s attempt to open the trunk via a switch inside the vehicle. After all, it’s a safety feature designed to prevent the lid from being unintentionally opened when breezing along the freeway at top speed.
“For some functions, up to 20 control devices communicate with one another”
Valentin Adam, Daimler Research
By now, many drivers are painfully aware of the downside of integrating various vehicle functions in this way: a defect forces the vehicle into the workshop, but instead of the problem being swiftly resolved, a crew of puzzled mechanics cluster round the engine compartment, scratch their heads, replace a “suspect” part and then send the driver away — only for the same or a related fault to appear again a short distance down the road. Not only does this replacement of nondefective parts on the strength of a mere hunch cost the customer money or bump up the company’s warranty and goodwill overheads. It also causes aggravation and gnaws away at the customer’s confidence in the quality of the product and service.In 2004, Adam therefore teamed up with colleagues from research, vehicle development, and aftersales to try and thrash out some systematic solutions to this kind of problem. Three years down the road and a sequence of successful pilot projects later, it was time for Adam’s project team to celebrate the news that their “Diagnostic Design Concept” had won the 2007 Daimler Research Award in the Process Innovations category.
Customers also have good reason to celebrate with the Daimler engineers, since the concept will soon become part of the array of diagnostic tools at the disposal of Mercedes-Benz workshops. In addition to boosting the level of customer satisfaction, the engineers are also looking to increase the so-called FFV rate. This measures the frequency with which vehicles are “fixed first visit,” rather than simply being subjected to a speculative exchange of parts.
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