Suppliers prepare as ‘Industry X.0’ connects every part of the car

At CES in January 2018, Faurecia unveiled an in-car voice recognition demonstrator that made use of Amazon’s Alexa platform. What makes this one different is its ability to distinguish different voices and, in effect, recognise with whom it is ‘speaking’. By using audio beam-forming technology, Alexa can then route commands to the appropriate service depending on who’s speaking – for example, a passenger might ask for their seat to be adjusted, or to have a message sent using their phone.

It’s a typical example of the infotainment innovations that every OEM is exploring, but it’s also an indication of how Industry 4.0 is going to change the way suppliers in the automotive industry will have to do business if they want to succeed. Helping Faurecia adapt its product planning, design and manufacturing is Accenture, which moving forward aims to provide suppliers with the digital tools with which they may previously have had little experience. In Faurecia’s case, this included things like Cloud computing.