turning ideas into success
Dear business friends and associates, our country s automobile industry ranks among the best in the world and is one of the strongest driving forces for jobs and industry. Consequently, the car still has an important role in society and individual transport remains a key element of personal freedom for people. While the car is still a status symbol, however, the trend in recent years has shifted from ambition to ownership. People want the function, but not the administration. In light of this, there will be completely new concepts for mobility on the road in the future both for passenger and freight transport. This is precisely where we are setting our strategic priorities for the next few years and focusing in particular on mobile online services and communication between vehicles and the environment. Modern Smartphone technologies will play a key role here. Like every computer, cars will also have their own IP address and communicate in real time via a cloud, which will provide drivers, technology and transport with optimal support at all times. However, we will also continue to devote special attention to advanced driver assistance systems and holistic control philosophies. Not only will your car park in the space or garage all by itself in future and be summonable in the broadest sense of the word; it will also pay attention to every little detail while driving and get you to your destination in one piece. For instance, there is an increasing trend towards robots, which serve people as reliably as they do comfortably. To enable our software systems and solutions to offer drivers from all walks of life the enjoyment of driving and, at the same time, the highest safety standards, we work in interdisciplinary teams comprising engineers, physicists, psychologists, designers, ergonomists and, of course, business economists. Our structures are geared towards quality, innovation and short decision-making paths, our culture towards maximum creativity and design freedom. Our staff are extremely passionate about their work and blossom into outstanding specialists. To make sure it stays that way, we constantly invest in their systematic further training to the benefit of everyone involved: our customers from innovation and progress, our company from a professional reputation and economic success, and the staff from personal development and the enjoyment of what they do for a living. On this basis, we look forward to an excellent collaboration, exciting projects and joint successes. Kind regards, Peter Behrendt Managing Director
Fascinating forces
Carmeq the company Since Carmeq GmbH was founded in 2002, the company s core business has been software for vehicle electronics. As competent consultants, experienced project managers and innovative developers, we are at the forefront of current trends and developments, and support our customers through all the stages of a new solution from the planning of the technological concepts right up to the hands-on implementation. In doing so, we always take advantage of the latest methods and technologies. Our team members are dedicated and passionate, and they display excellent team spirit. Carmeq customers benefit from the team s practical knowledge transfers and receive the best possible integration of new solutions into their working environment. For specific tasks beyond the scope of our in-house team, we collaborate with leading experts and service providers, always making sure everything fits together seamlessly. The networks we build consist of people as well as technology, and by closely integrating all the different skill sets, we create recognisable added value. Working for the global automotive and parts industry, we strictly adhere to standardised international norms and models. This gives us a secure and transparent understanding of all our quality factors, and the services we provide to our customers are based on utmost reliability. As a subsidiary of Volkswagen, we take full advantage of the VW Group s membership in international development committees. This positions us very closely to current developments in the field, and also enables us to stimulate new concepts ourselves. Our company is headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and we maintain branches in Ingolstadt as well as the AutoVision Forum in Wolfsburg and Stuttgart. Requirements and tasks change daily. This calls for ultimate flexibility. It is our mission and the whole aim of our work to deliver our best results all of the time. Michael Dinné, Finance Manager
Energy for innovations
Ideas opportunities successes How much infotainment helps a driver, and when does it start to interfere? What are the most effective ways of integrating new safety functions into a vehicle? Which features will improve driver assistance even further? What is the best way to balance driver comfort against cost? Which solutions best combine energy savings with vehicle performance? All these questions are answered by system architecture and technology, which is why these competencies are of such crucial importance to vehicle manufacturers and suppliers. At Carmeq, we create technological concepts for software-based functions in embedded vehicle systems, and we develop products and solutions that are ready for series production. When you are working with the right partners, your ideas are transformed into real-world opportunities. We will help you to turn these opportunities into successes by analysing markets and technologies, conducting feasibility studies, developing prototypes, and running extensive trials. On the basis of these efforts, we compile market introduction scenarios and in-depth costs and benefits analyses. We will gladly take on the responsibility for your developments be it in person at your location or as your supplier of new solutions. We aim to bring together technologies, media and especially people from completely different disciplines. This approach enables us to continually optimise vehicle technology systems with new ideas and innovative solutions, as well as developing driver features that are both useful and easy to learn. Dr. Geerd Anders, Architecture and Technologies
Time is money
Project control The development of advanced technological products is frequently associated with the risk that costs and deadlines spiral out of control. We help you to minimise this risk: through appropriate methodologies, a versatile and efficient development team, a suitable organisational structure, realistic project planning, and professional project management. We will analyse your organisation and processes with proven methods, outline any opportunities for optimisation, and advise you in the structuring of your development units. We will establish a project management office together with you that will provide full support to the project leader, guarantee transparency across all stages of development, and produce targeted reports for company management. The biggest challenges in development projects are often not of a technological but a human nature which is why a personal focus is paramount in project management. Our team members will support you throughout all critical project situations, instating specialised task forces or even interim management structures as needed. As a result, you will adhere not only to your project deadlines but also to the given cost and quality schedules. In the automotive industry, software development represents a significant paradigm shift. The focus is no longer on physical parts but on software-based functionalities. We have aligned our organisational structures and processes accordingly, and we steer all development projects so that our customers will remain fully in control of future development and cost targets. Thomas Illgen, Vehicle Projects and Processes
Driving innovation
Expertise and resources In our development of software-based systems, we take a uniform approach to processes, methods and tools alike. We achieve excellent results because of it, and can flexibly integrate our developments into your working environment. Thanks to new technological methods, convincing business cases and innovative user-oriented solutions, we can provide you with make-or-break competitive advantages. Valuable synergy effects are created through our extensive networking with technical departments and areas at OEMs and parts suppliers. In effect, we act as both a multiplier and a catalyst in the application and dissemination of new standards and technologies. Our team members work is based on the highest technical expertise, which we ensure through our systematic staff training programmes. We will gladly assign our specialists to your tasks and challenges. You can benefit from our exhaustive expertise and take advantage of practical knowledge transfers in the development and adaptation of cutting-edge technologies for new applications. Over the last few years, we have expanded continuously. Our teams have enjoyed an influx of brilliant young minds, introducing fresh impulses and new perspectives to the company. Combined with the professional and life experiences of our established team members, this provides us with the necessary energies to create innovative solutions and viable products for our customers. Torsten Klein, Functional Development
Only the best is good enough
Ensuring top quality Our primary concern is the quality of our software solutions. Accordingly, quality assurance begins right at the start in the first stage of development planning. CarQuESt, our uniform company-wide quality and development standard, incorporates all the relevant international standards, including DIN EN ISO 9001:2000 and SPICE. As a customer, this gives you the security that all the services you receive from us share the same high quality. In order to make every step of development fully traceable and to guarantee that every single requirement has been met, we support our high-performance processes with powerful moni- toring tools. In addition, regular feedback from customers and team members gives us the opportunity to continually improve our discerning quality standards. We design our processes to be sleek and transparent; you will find them to be practical and effective, free of unnecessary cost overheads, and completely unobtrusive in terms of day-to-day operations. We tightly control process complexity and guarantee the highest levels of quality and efficiency. When the team members can observe that Quality Management s flexible error and change management strategies help them to fulfil customer requirements more accurately and efficiently, they are more than happy to take them on board. In this regard, quality is not only a promise to the outside world but also a permanent fixture of our corporate culture. Britta Nickol, Quality Management
Passion, intellect and team spirit
People make all the difference Without a doubt, technology, expertise and quality are the main cornerstones of development. Ultimately however, the success of any development is based on the people involved. By contributing their technical knowledge, their professionalism and life experiences, their enthusiasm and certainly also their social skills, the team members are the foundation on which our products and solutions can flourish. To ensure a healthy team structure, we avoid vertical hierarchies wherever we can and focus on teamwork instead. At Carmeq, we marry creativity with experience and expertise. This lets us consistently discover new trends and topics to contribute to your strategies. We encourage lateral thinking, which frequently produces unique innovations that can make all the difference in a competitive environment. We take great care to get to know your tasks and challenges, and we can adapt to changing situations. Carmeq is your service provider, and as such we place great value in partnership and faultless communication. Our team members can realise your ideas from planning right through to the start of production, implement the latest concepts, and translate scientific expertise into feasible practical scenarios. The development opportunities we offer are excellent from technology to project management right through to consulting. The people mix of our teams is based on an interdisciplinary focus, with senior as well as junior professionals, a mixture of male and female perspectives, and the skills diversity provided by engineers, physicists, psychologists, designers, ergonomists and business economists. We strongly believe that top performance can only be achieved if the entire team pulls together. And only the top is good enough for us. We need the most highly trained team of experts. That is why we offer second-to-none working conditions and advancement opportunities. Continuous further training and state-of-the-art equipment is just as much part of the package as leeway for creativity and a friendly and open working environment. Our customers also benefit from this. Tineke de Vries, Human Resources
Carmeq GmbH Carnotstrasse 4 10587 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 30 3983537-0 Fax +49 30 3983537-199 info@carmeq.com www.carmeq.com