Continental Expands Engineering Services Unit

Continental AG is expanding its automobile manufacturer and supplier engineering services. “For 2005 we are aiming to achieve corporate sales volumes in the double-digit million range,” said Continental executive board member, Dr Karl-Thomas Neumann. “In the area of vehicle dynamics and suspension control in particular we are filling a niche that to date has hardly been tackled by engineering service providers, as only very few companies have the required broad technical knowledge of automotive brakes, chassis, electronics and tyres,” explained Dr Neumann.

“Our portfolio includes time-to-market support, vehicle equipment, software development, extra-small-scale productions, automotive processes, consulting and development tasks for motor racing. Our goal is to shorten the development times for our customers,” said Dr Stefan Stölzl, executive responsible for software products and engineering services at Continental Teves. “The customer-specific vehicle equipment is often used to study the feasibility of new ideas and systems in the car manufacturer’s advanced engineering stage. Similarly, customer’s special wishes are tailored for the respective vehicle and then put directly into production.”

The company explained that its NVH unit is also a profit centre, providing solutions in the field of acoustics and vibration technology. “NVH stands for noise, vibration and harsh-ness, and thus refers to the entire range of vibration perception, from hearing to feeling. In our labs and on our test tracks, we optimize the entire vehicle as well as individual components for production applications. With the help of computer simulations, we define the optimum product design from an acoustic standpoint at an early stage in the development,” explained Dr Frank Gauterin, head of NVH Engineering.