The technology imperative is here, and it’s driven by megatrends affecting all of us, including climate change and resource scarcity, the sharing economy, digital transformation, the global marketplace and the productivity imperative. It’s more important than ever that companies develop innovation strategies that can drive advanced technology to market faster, provide economies of scale and product acceptance.
We’ve been continuously evolving our technology capabilities and development approach to match the needs of customers and the megatrends affecting the world around us. Our approach to innovation has evolved further with the addition of Jay Iyengar to Oshkosh as chief technology and strategic sourcing officer in January 2022. Jay brought with her a broad portfolio of experience from roles in automotive, aerospace and heavy-duty industrial vehicles.
We understand the importance of thinking differently about how we develop and deliver innovation in this technology imperative era, and Jay has been influential in advancing our approach. Our innovation and strategic framework contain four key building blocks: world-class capabilities and a highly talented engineering team, accelerating impact through open innovation, collaborating closely with customers and embracing disruptive technology. This framework gives Oshkosh the ability to advance technology effectively and efficiently.
World class capabilities and a highly talented engineering team
As an industrial technology company, one of our core strengths is our people. We have a depth of engineering horsepower with expertise across key disciplines like advanced modeling and simulation, systems engineering, software and controls, IoT, electronics, material sciences, data sciences and many more — all of which are an important foundation of our strong innovation strategy.
Having the right comprehensive end-to-end product development capabilities enables us to get designs right the first time, which improves speed to market. We achieve this by focusing on requirements for management, digital engineering, design and product validation as well as lifecycle management.
Accelerating impact through open innovation
The second tenant of our strategy is accelerating impact with open innovation. We don’t just innovate within the four walls of the company. Great ideas can come from anywhere. Oshkosh has built an ecosystem of technology partners such as start-ups, universities, suppliers and customers to leverage their strengths and extend our own research and development reach.
As an example, Carnegie Melon University and Robotic Research are premier research institutions in autonomy. Not only are we partnering with them on the development of autonomous technology, we’re also opening a technology center for the development of autonomous solutions in Pittsburgh.
Recently we also invested in a LiDAR technology company, Baraja Pty, Ltd., an Australian-based startup that develops differentiated LiDAR solutions that will further support our technology development in autonomy.
By combining our internal capabilities with this open innovation approach, we can reduce the time required to bring new, disruptive technologies to market.
Collaborating closely with customers
One of our strengths is the relationships we develop with those who rely on Oshkosh products to do their difficult jobs every day. We work very closely to understand their pain points and challenges. For instance, firefighters need their vehicles to be fully capable and ready to go at the instant they receive a call. Soldiers on dangerous, complex missions rely on our vehicle mobility and protection. Construction operators working at height need to feel safe. Environmental and mail carriers who spend all day in their vehicles, essentially their offices, need to be comfortable and productive.
A great example of close customer collaboration was the development of the purpose-built Pierce® Volterra™ Electric Fire Truck. Our team of engineers spent countless hours with firefighters to understand what was most important to them in the development of this new vehicle. The number one priority for them was that we preserve vehicle configuration and performance, keeping everything in the same place as a conventional fire fighting vehicle. And the Pierce Volterra does just that.
Embracing disruptive technology
Looking at the megatrends affecting the world and the needs of our customers, we focus on five key technology areas: electrification, autonomy and active safety, intelligent and connected products, advanced analytics and digital manufacturing.
Electrification
Driven by climate change, the need to reduce emissions and new regulation in some states, electrification is a technology that our customers need and our communities want. With nearly 30 years of electrification experience, we’re applying that knowledge in the development of electric, zero emission, purpose-built vehicles and equipment. We’ve launched electric products in almost all our end markets. They include the Pierce Volterra and Oshkosh Airport Products Volterra Electric Fire Fighting vehicles, the USPS Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV), the DaVinci all-electric scissor lift and, most recently, the Fully Integrated Electric Refuse Collection Vehicle.
Autonomy and active safety
The productivity imperative and labor challenges faced by many can be addressed through autonomy and active safety. Across many of our applications these technologies provide benefits from advanced driver safety, simplification and automation of complex vehicle operations, enhanced productivity and a solution to the labor shortage. A great example of this is the addition of active safety technology in the USPS NGDV. The new vehicle comes with collision warning systems, automatic braking, 360-degree camera and low speed radar, as well as bumper sensors — helping keep people safe and improving productivity.
Intelligent and connected products
Digital transformation and the productivity imperative mean the products that we design and build need to be intelligent. Our products are inherently intelligent, with embedded controls, software and electronics. As an example, Oshkosh Airport Products Airport Rescue Firefighting Vehicle (ARFF) has about 30 electronic control units on it. Using telematics, we collect data from connected products around the world and provide insight to our customers. This technology has tremendous benefits in driving productivity and improving total cost of ownership for our customers.
Advanced analytics
Not only is digital transformation important in our products, it’s also critical within our own business. We’re applying digital technologies to continuously reimagine our business. Using advanced analytics and AI, we’re partnering with our internal business teams to increase productivity while providing greater business intelligence to decision-makers and delivering operational excellence on behalf of our customers.
Digital manufacturing
We’re connecting people, equipment and processes with real-time data, using automation to replace mundane and repetitive tasks so our team members can focus on more value-added work. We’re also leveraging augmented reality to train the next generation workforce on a technology they’re familiar with and one that creates a risk-free environment enabling real-time feedback.
The world is changing faster than ever. So are the needs of people, communities and customers. Developing an agile innovation approach that has a strong foundation in people and capabilities, being open to new and different ways to innovate, working closely with your customers and focusing on the right technology that matters will be key to navigating the technology imperative successfully.
Company: Oshkosh Corporation
Innovation: Innovative technology
Website: oshkoshcorp.com
