Automotive Quality Universities - AQUA Alliance

Automotive Quality Universities - AQUA Alliance Extension to Higher Education Jakub Stolfa1, Svatopluk Stolfa1, Andreas Riel2, Serge Tichkiewitch2, Christian Kreiner3, Richard Messnarz4, Miran Rodic5, Monika.Gaisch6 1

Department of Computer Science, FEECS, VSB-Technical University of Ostrava 17.listopadu 15, 708 33 Ostrava-Poruba 2EMIRAcle AISBL c/o Grenoble Institute of Technology, 46 av Félix Viallet, 38031 Grenoble, France 3Graz University of Technology, Institute of Technical Informatics, Rechbauaerstrasse 12, 8010 Graz, Austria 4ISCN Ltd., Florence House - Florence Villas 1, Bray, Ireland 5University of Maribor, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Smetanova ulica 17, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia 6University of Applied Sciences Joanneum, Graz, Austria

{jakub.stolfa, svatopluk.stolfa}@vsb.cz

Abstract. This paper discusses the extension of AQUA (Automotive Knowledge Alliance AQUA – Integrating Automotive SPICE, Six Sigma, and Functional Safety) into the higher education studies. Follow-up project Automotive quality universities (AQU) aims to the adaptation of the AQUA integrated concept to the universities ECTS granted courses. The goal is to bridge the knowledge gap between the automotive industry needs graduates capabilities in the area of Automotive SPICE, Functional Safety and Six Sigma. The integrated concept of AQU and AQUA complex approach to the education of graduates and engineers to enhance the knowledge in this area is described. Keywords: automotive, automotive spice, functional safety, six sigma, integrated approach, aqua

1

Introduction

Assuring quality in Automotive has grown to a huge challenge and competition factor driven mainly by the permanent cost pressure in a mass market that is increasingly confronted with the safety criticality of various mechatronic systems and subsystems in a car. Nowadays electronics and software control more than 70% of a modern car’s functions, and several studies predict this share to grow to 90% and more in the future [1]. This leads to a level of system and process complexity that has never been experienced before. There is a strong common agreement in the sector that interdisciplinary expertise is the absolutely indispensable fundamental basis for being able to tackle this complexity under the heavy pressure of shorter development and adfa, p. 1, 2011. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

innovation cycles. International standards and norms about Development Quality (Automotive SPICE®, ISO/IEC 15504 [15]), Functional Safety (ISO 26262 [14], IEC 61508 [13]) and Six Sigma [16] (production and process quality) form the backbone of the European automotive and supplier industry. These standards make the smooth coupling of the different companies along the supply chain possible, and enable the successful integration of all parts and subsystems. In order to be eligible for OEMs, suppliers have to implement and master all these standards. The European automotive industry, however, is confronted with a lack of qualified specialists and even more so of interdisciplinary “all-rounders” that can act as the links between different expert groups. Both, OEMs and suppliers, expect Automotive Quality Engineering skills from engineers, which is manifested by the increasing number of job vacancies for job roles with a high quality skills relevance (designers, developers, testers, functional safety experts and managers, quality managers, etc.). Faced with the complex challenges of holistic quality engineering taking into account mechanical and electrical/electronic hardware, software, as well as product design, development, and manufacturing, companies experience a substantial difference between the quality engineering skills and their actual needs and expectations. This difference leads to a significant decrease in their efficiency, effectiveness and therefore competitiveness. One of the possible solutions to this situation is to prepare an integrated Automotive Quality Engineering education system for engineers and for graduates that envision their future career in the automotive industry. The education system should be able to address the needs of OEMs and suppliers in this field and be economically suitable. Attempts to develop a new educational approach for automotive engineers already begun. The EU Erasmus+ Sector-Skills-Alliance project AQUA (Automotive Knowledge Alliance AQUA – Integrating Automotive SPICE, Six Sigma, and Functional Safety, 2013-2014) first developed a curriculum (skill card), training material, and certificate for an “Automotive Quality Engineer Integrated” on Vocational education and training level (hereinafter VET) [3, 10]. This is based on a consistent and modular kit (“Baukasten”) of training modules for Functional Safety, Automotive SPICE and Six Sigma, as well as on their integration that was developed (which is completely new on the training market) [3, 8, 9]. As a European Skills Alliance project, AQUA received high visibility by the European Commission, Automotive clusters, and industry, in particular suppliers and their European Association CLEPA. The basis for the new educational approach was established and now is the time to do the next step - AQUA alliance evolution - in terms of geographic coverage, by extending the initial focus on vocational training to cover also university and technical school education programmes, as well as extending the scope of topics, e.g. incorporating security design in practice to harden Automotive systems against malicious attacks. Follow-on project "Automotive Quality Universities" is currently rolling out and extending AQUA skills to Universities across Europe - to grow and strengthen the AQUA alliance. In this paper, Automotive Quality Universities (hereinafter AQU) extension concept of AQUA to higher education level is presented and next development and visions

about a possible orientation to the future is discussed. Section 1 describes the AQUA establishment idea and basic principles. Section 2 describes the AQUA basic idea and principles. Section 3 presents the AQU project goals and achievements and Section 4, Conclusion then summarizes the benefits and consequences of presented extension concept.

2

AQUA – Automotive Quality Integrated

In the past the role of an Automotive quality manager was based on standards like IEC 16949 and the implementation of a quality management system. With the growth of complexity of car functionality and the increased use of electronics (more than 100 ECUs in cars are connected by a bus and each car function is mapped onto an ECU cluster) other rules came into existence. Automotive SPICE (ISO 15504) knowledge is meanwhile an important skill to assess Automotive systems which include both, electronics and software. Most of the manufacturers demand a SPICE level 3 from the suppliers. Faults of electronic devices and software can lead to hazards (e.g. blocking wheels, unintended steering, no brake force, etc.) so that a new standard functional safety ISO 26262 has to be implemented. Systems that might cause a hazard get classified by an ASIL-A to D level. Therefore quality managers that have to release a product to the market must be familiar with the functional safety as well. Quality management (specified in IEC 16949) has a responsibility for the entire product life-cycle, including the production part. Six Sigma is nowadays the most wellknown method and statistical toolbox for quality control in production. Automotive manufacturers (OEMs) demand from their suppliers increasingly high performance levels in all these three dimensions [2]. The most successful companies have an integrated view on this three-dimensional space. This essentially means that they achieve to take the related aspects into account in an integrated and systematic way from the very early design phases over the whole product creation cycle. In order to be able to do so, they have to qualify employees who are able to understand the essentials of the three aforementioned domains, and therefore act as links between the domain-experts. Furthermore, these employees also have an essential role in the project assessment processes that automotive suppliers have to undergo in order to be eligible for OEMs [5]. AQUA (Knowledge Alliance for Training, Quality and Excellence in Automotive) project, a pilot in the Erasmus+ Sector Skill Alliances Program under the project number EAC-2012-0635, is the very first European qualification and certification program that addresses exactly this need and established an innovative modular teaching platform integrating following three dimensions on VET level:  Automotive SPICE® (ISO/IEC 15504): Quality linked to the development process of software and electronics.  Functional Safety (ISO 26262): Quality associated with the achievement of Functional Safety requirements.



Design for Six Sigma: Focus on the reliability and robustness of products and production processes. A Base layer of core modules was established and allows an integrated complementary view about these three approaches. Figure 1 illustrates the AQUA concept.

Fig. 1. Modular AQUA concept - unit 2 product development.

Specific content layers (Automotive SPICE, Functional Safety and Six Sigma) represent the particular approaches and the knowledge that is necessary for the specific element. The additional Integration AQUA layer then presents the integrated view, where common principles and paradigms of all approaches are linked, forming the holistic understanding of the presented contents. This modular strategy allows companies to select each method separately or also to gain an advanced insight into how these methods in fact are joined together in advanced engineering companies. The AQUA unit content covers all the necessary knowledge: introduction of the approaches, product development, quality and safety management, and measurement. In AQUA the concept of a new education for “Automotive Quality Manager with AQUA Skills” is formed and quality managers for the integrated understanding of the above three methods are trained [3, 6, 7].

3

AQU – Automotive Quality Universities

In the Automotive Quality Universities (Automotive Universe, hereinafter AQU) a ERASMUS+ project on Strategic Partnership for higher education, it is planned to launch the AQUA education at the universities, where ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) will be agreed to among a set of universities in Europe. The Automotive area is one of the European lead industries and employers, thus to provide the proper skills for staying competitive at the university level is a high demand across all member states.

Fig. 2. Schematic view of AQUA, automotive industry, universities and AQU project relations

Schematic view of relations between AQUA, automotive industry, universities and AQU project are depictured in the Fig. 2. On the top left of the figure universities as a provider of higher education are depictured. Universities provide graduates to the automotive industry, however like it was mentioned in the introduction, it is possible to identify some kind of knowledge gap in the area of automotive spice, functional safety and six sigma that are widely used and form the backbone of quality assurance in the automotive industry. Previously mentioned AQUA helps to increase knowledge level directly in the automotive industry by educating employees. AQU's goal is to reduce the knowledge gap between graduates of universities and required engineering and management skills in the industry. Anyway, the need for the application of selected approaches is relatively new even in the industry, so sometimes there are no engineers in the company, who would be skilled in this direction. With the combination of AQUA trainings at the industry and AQUA courses at the universities, prepared by AQU

project, it is possible to bring a synergistic and homogenous solution to education of automotive spice, functional safety and six sigma in the automotive area. The goal of AQU project is to establish the AQUA training at different universities as Automotive Quality Engineering oriented lectures. All universities agreed to provide ECTS for the lectures and also agree to recognize ECQA as a supplementary industry certificate for the students. AQU project consortium includes: - VŠB - Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic - University of Technology Graz, Austria - University of Applied Sciences Joanneum, Graz, Austria - University of Maribor, Slovenia - EMIRACLE (European Innovation in Manufacturing Association), Belgium, teaching students e.g. at Grenoble Institute of Technology, as well as professors and students in several French Engineering Schools (Ecole Centrale de Nantes, ENSAM ParisTech Aix en Provence, Université de Technologie de Troyes, Ecole Centrale de Lyon) - ISCN / ECQA Online Campus for Industry It is also planned to establish an online Moodle based teaching platform where students from different universities can have joint subjects and exercises in the Automotive Quality area. The online campus will be integrated into the ECQA skills portals, learning portals and exam portals, allowing computer based learning and exams, and industry-recognized certificates in parallel to university ECTS. The presented goals analysis showed that there are several challenges in adopting the originally VET oriented courses at the higher education level: 1. Process of integration to particular university (Integration of AQUA content to higher education) 2. Mapping AQUA ECVET to ECTS, curriculum adjustments. 3. Present knowledge on the level that is suitable for the students that are not experienced in the specific approaches. To address this challenges, we have performed an analysis of needs, wishes, approaches and possible solutions for particular universities in particular countries. As a part of that analysis, educational programmes where the AQUA should be incorporated were compared as well. As the AQUA topic is broad wide and includes the possible application in electric, electronics and software development, requests and incorporation of proposals from participating universities also represent variety of possible inclusions into the different programmes. 3.1

Process of integration to particular universities

Analysis and comparison of needs was performed at the project participating universities. The goal of the analysis was to get the information how the original modular AQUA course would be suitable for higher education studies in terms of modularity and content. Every university analyzed its needs and made a statement about the possible involvement of the AQUA to their programmes. Basically, there are two possibilities of integration. First option is to take an AQUA course as a new subject and try to integrate it into the studies. Second approach is to

use the big advantage of modularity and integrate an appropriate parts of the AQUA content to the current programme courses. Such an integration will be beneficial for understanding of the integration of AQUA related issues into the particular subjects on particular issues of development and quality in automotive industry. AQUA as a separate course AQUA project was first developed a curriculum (skill card), training material, and certificate for an “Automotive Quality Engineer Integrated” on VET level. To apply this course as a part of the higher education studies with ECTS granted, ECTS points have to be assigned to the course. The initial consideration of planned AQUA courses was already done. It is planned that if the course is taught as a pure AQUA course with the present content (Automotive SPICE, Functional Safety, Six Sigma), three AQUA subject will be suitable. Table 1. shows mapping of AQUA content to European Qualifications Framework levels (hereinafter EQF) [4]. It is divided to one bachelor course (3 ECTS), one master course (4 ECTS) and one doctoral course (5 ECTS). Bachelor courses content will be oriented more towards the theoretical aspects of integrated concept and even to the standards and approaches themselves, master courses will be oriented more to the practical aspects of integration and doctoral courses will allow research and development that deals with the integrated concept, standards and approaches. Table 1. Mapping AQUA content to EQF levels EQF Level Level 6 Level 7

Level 8

AQUA content Presentations / theory Presentations / theory Exercises to apply on an example (e.g. ESCL) Presentations / theory Exercises to apply on an example (e.g. ESCL) Implementation in a research at PhD level / with link to a real project

ECTS 3 4

5

As an analysis output, AQU project partners agreed on the selection of elements for the particular levels of studies. Bachelor level course will contain whole Unit 1 introduction, Capability and Assessment and Audit elements from the Unit 3 – Quality and Safety Management and Concepts of some elements from the Unit 2 - Product and Development (Table 2.). Master study subject then will contain especially all Unit 2 – Product and Development elements, that expect some level of practice and combination of gained knowledge from all other elements and other necessary Elements from the rest of element to be able to master the approach of integrated quality concept (Table 3.).

Table 2. Universities – AQUA content for Bachelor Level Content Units of the training and skill card Unit 1 - Introduction U1.E1: Introduction U1.E2: Organisational Readiness Uni 2 - Product Development U2.E1: Life Cycle U2.E2: Requirements U2.E3: Design U2.E4: Test and Integration Unit 3 - Quality and Safety Management U3.E1: Capability U3.E2: Hazard and Risk Management U3.E3: Assessment and Audit Unit 4 - Measure U4.E1: Measurement U4.E2: Reliability

Link Module / Integration View

ASPICE Module

Six Sigma Module

Safety Module

X X

X X

X X

X X

X (concept) X (concept) X (concept) X (concept)

X (concept)

X (concept)

X (concept)

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Table 3. Universities – AQUA content for Master Level Content Units of the training and skill card Unit 1 - Introduction U1.E1: Introduction U1.E2: Organisational Readiness Uni 2 - Product Development U2.E1: Life Cycle U2.E2: Requirements U2.E3: Design U2.E4: Test and Integration Unit 3 - Quality and Safety Management U3.E1: Capability U3.E2: Hazard and Risk Management U3.E3: Assessment and Audit Unit 4 – Measure U4.E1: Measurement U4.E2: Reliability

Link Module / Integration View

ASPICE Module

Six Sigma Module

Safety Module

X X X X

X X X X

X X X X

X X X X

X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X X

AQUA integration to the currently existing courses AQUA integration to the current courses will be the synergetic utilization of AQUA modular approach and as a matter of fact also a logical application of the original AQUA standards and approaches integration idea. In this case, the integrated standards and approaches concept will be included to the particular content where it should exactly be. This inclusion would bring us the benefit of complex understanding of the usage of standards, approaches and tools for the specific part of the development lifecycle at the right moment.

Acquisition of this approach needs besides other things reconsideration of each element from the higher education formal needs. Original AQUA VET course is very modular and consists of many elements grouped to several units. Every particular element and its content will be considered and at least appropriate amount working hours will be assigned to each module [12]. In that case we will be able to grant the amount of work that has to be done to master the element or its part and assign appropriate credits to the AQUA content as an included content. Then the particular selected subject can integrate the element or part of the element to its content and the amount of work that is needed will be clearly defined. Analysis of the possible inclusion at particular universities that are partners in this project showed that there are really a lot of options, how and where to integrate the AQUA content. 3.2

Pilot courses and teaching

Some pilot AQUA courses were already held at the universities across the Europe – INP Grenoble, TU Graz, FH Joanneum and VSB-TUO. Trainers from AQUA taught these courses almost similarly as AQUA industry trainings and tested and observed the applicability of such a course in the higher education. Original course and its content is mostly oriented on the practical aspects for application in practice (Automotive SPICE, Functional Safety, Six Sigma so far). Such orientation that deals mostly with the essential question "how" is very useful for the application in the industry, where engineers and managers are mostly aware of answers to other essential questions "why" and "what for". Showing the practically applicable answer in form of approaches and methods to the "how" question for AQUA integrated concept is the key idea that leaded the development of this courses. However, many reactions and other feedbacks from the universities showed, that students are not always aware of the needs that are requested by the automotive project’s stakeholders. Thus students were able to learn the practical AQUA course content well, but are questioning and missing more information "why" and "what for" they should apply so many new concepts. Why to perform all of these integrated approaches if sometimes the task is easy and understandable and some methods seem to be redundant at first glance. The conclusion for this finding is to prepare more "why" and "what for" oriented presentations for each element and thus to be prepared to show the answers to these essential questions and clarify the students understanding of common stakeholder needs. In the case of industry AQUA courses, such a presentation can serve as support materials in case that requirements are not properly understood by trainees, because stakeholder did not push them so far or they are novices in the automotive industry. Adding a content to the AQUA courses of course again increases the amount of time that is needed to go through the content and must be considered during the ECVET and ECTS considerations.

4

Conclusion

Currently the participating universities already offer programs dedicated to quality engineering in automotive. However, they are mostly based on older norms like TS 16949 / ISO 9001 and do not consider the new challenges introduced mainly by the highly networked and complex electric/electronic/software subsystems in the vehicle. These challenges are certain to become even more important and difficult as the automotive industry committed to bringing the autonomous, networked vehicle on the market in 2021. Mastering these challenges from an engineering point of view requires an integrated, systemic knowledge of the three fundamental fields: Automotive SPICE (capability of a company to develop software and electronics in a car, ISO 15504), Functional Safety (analysing and avoiding risks in the vehicle - e.g. self-steering leading to an accident or GM's ignition system problem which its impacts probably killed more than 100 people, ISO 26262), and Six Sigma (achieving a quantitative approach to production and product quality). To support the European automotive industry (we are currently facing a paradigm change in industry, like it was the case in mobile phone technology when switching from mobile to smart phones) to stay competitive, it is extremely important to transfer this specific integrated knowledge to students thus empowering them to assume modern quality and safety related job roles in European automotive industry. Very recently, the German Automotive Association (VDA) formed an Automotive Quality Alliance where all the major OEMs (car manufacturers) define assessment and selection criteria for suppliers mainly in terms of quality and safety [11]. This is another outstanding proof that all the automotive suppliers will need that knowledge, whatever subsystem they develop and produce. Consequently, a high demand for such skills is guaranteed in all regions of Europe where the automotive industry plays a key role as an employer. This analysis corresponds to the motivation of the higher education institutions participating in the consortium of this project. Their particular interest is to considerably improve the automotive quality engineering education thanks to a new curriculum which represents current and future industry practice. They are convinced that the materials developed in AQUA provide the ideal basis for such a new programme. They will integrate the results of this project in their curricula leading to the education and certification of several hundreds of engineering students per year. As all these universities are highly networked in Europe and beyond, they will not only impact education on their national level, but also on European and international level. This will significantly contribute to bridging the knowledge and skills gap that actually exists between engineering education in automotive quality engineering and industry needs. By aligning the programme with the ECTS scheme, it will be enabled for being adopted by several other universities in Europe, and also facilitated for being integrated in joint master programmes.

By associating to this programme a European ECQA certificate, which is officially recognized by leading industry, the new education programme will deliver outstanding added value to students and improve their competitive advantage on the job market.

Acknowledgement This research was financially supported by the European Commission in the AQUA (Knowledge Alliance for Training, Quality and Excellence in Automotive) project as a pilot in the Erasmus+ Sector Skill Alliances Program under the project number EAC2012-0635. The special aspect of adapting the training program to higher education level, and its deployment in five European universities is financially supported by the European Commission in the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project 2015-1-CZ01KA203-013986 AutoUniverse (Automotive Quality Universities). This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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