Evolutions in the Auto Tech Industry

Nick Rumberger, Director of Engineering in BILSTEIN, leads a technical team in designing and delivering top-tier performance products for OEMs. With expertise in performance, ride comfort, safety, quality, and profitability, he ensures projects meet cost and time targets while maintaining superior standards.

1. What are some of the major challenges and trends that have been impacting the Auto tech industry lately?

On the supply chain side, we continue to struggle with chip shortages. We do not have a concern with chips in our dampers, but instead chips inside the manufacturing equipment that we utilize to produce our product. In some cases, we are seeing machine vendors with PLC lead times longer than our vehicle customer timelines! It’s difficult to be timing competitive in that situation.

On the product side, the big trend has been developing damper technologies for EV vehicles. The majority of new business acquisition projects BILSTEIN is working on are for EV vehicles. Generally speaking, when a vehicle transitions from combustion to EV, there is a significant mass increase largely due to the batter capacity. The increase in mass on the vehicle side translates to greater demand from the shock absorber. Damper technologies and system sizes developed 10 to 15 years before for combustion vehicles are simply not suited to deal with the heavy EV vehicles of today.

Fortunately for BILSTEIN, our technology portfolio is bolstered by years and years of successful high-performance off-road shock absorbers that share system sizes and internal pressures required by today’s EV vehicles. Combining our off[1]road experience with the market leading comfort of our semi[1]active electronic damper, DampTronic® Sky technology puts us right in the sweet spot of the damper technology application to today’s EVs.

The pressure from our customers on cost has never been greater. The trend we are seeing with our customers is that the transition from combustion to EV is not cheap! In order to keep the end sales price of the vehicle competitive, every component on the vehicle is scrutinized – dampers are not immune to the cost scrutiny. BILSTEIN Engineering and Purchasing are working together extremely hard to maintain our competitive edge.

2. What keeps you up at night when it comes to some of the major predicaments in the Auto tech industry?

Carbon neutrality in our production as well as mapping the carbon footprint throughout our entire supply chain will be a massive challenge. BILSTEIN is pushing for carbon neutrality along with our customers, it is the right thing to do but we aren’t there yet. We are already making significant progress towards our initiative by sourcing 100 percent renewable energy in our own manufacturing. Mapping the entire supply chain will be extremely challenging but we have an ambitious global team from cross-functional backgrounds leading the charge and I’m confident we will get there.

Combining our off-road experience with the market leading comfort of our semi-active electronic damper DampTronic® Sky technology puts us right in the sweet spot of the damper technology application to today’s EVs

The trend of customer project timelines getting shorter and shorter keeps me up at night. We have built all of our internal processes under the old assumption of a “normal” timeline. When customer expectations are much shorter, it forces our team to adapt and make it happen. We have proven that we are capable and successful working to shorter timelines, but it doesn’t feel sustainable to guarantee success on every project. We are adapting to the new normal of shorter timelines and continue to look for opportunities to streamline our processes using data digitalization, upgrading our PLM system, revising standards, and constantly challenging the norm. We have a very talented team of engineers and the culture we have created is an ideal breeding ground for constant and continuous improvement.

3. Can you tell us about the latest project that you have been working on and what are some of the technological and process elements that you leveraged to make the project successful?

The automotive world is evolving every day. While I cannot disclose our technology roadmap or future customer outlook, all I can say is gear up – BILSTEIN has some very exciting things in the pipeline and when we can announce it, I would be happy to supply additional content.

4. What are some of the technological trends which excite you for the future of the Auto Tech Industry?

I believe the entire industry is trying to figure out what to do with fully active suspension, the technology that can jump over speed bumps. We have significant engineering and production experience with fully active suspension. BILSTEIN understands the pros and cons of active vs. semi-active (reactive) dampers, the market has a way to go. We are ready to meet the demands of the next customer and I look forward to see what creative vehicle applications our customers will come to BILSTEIN for next!

5. How can budding and evolving companies reach you for suggestions to streamline your business?

Honestly, LinkedIn has been a great way to reach out to me. I am an active user and check messages daily. With that being said, don’t blow up my inbox too much!