Tag: autonomous vehicle

OM in the News: The Rise of the Self-Driving Truck

Whatever type of vehicle arrives at the Bay Area headquarters of Aurora, the team can have it running without a driver in just 12 weeks. The transformation involves pulling apart the dashboard, fitting the vehicle with a stack of sensors and computer systems, then installing a “single umbilical” cord to communicate between the vehicle and the self-driving technology.

Aurora has integrated its robotic “Driver” into eight types of vehicle since its founding in 2017. But its system is proving most successful in heavy-duty trucks, which are now a main battleground for autonomous technology as the mass rollout of robotaxis falters. Partnering with Volvo Trucks, Peterbilt, and Kenworth, with a combined US market share of more than 50%, Aurora is a big force in driverless trucking.

truck2

The business case for disrupting the $800 billion U.S. trucking market is clear, writes the Financial Times (March 31, 2021). Two-thirds of America’s consumer goods are transported to market by truck, but laws limiting drivers’ shifts to a maximum of 11 hours mean longer journeys often take several days.

On average 20% of miles driven are empty and not generating revenue, but still generating gas emissions and pollution. The potential for automation to drive consolidation could be easily as big as for cars, as trucks drive 170 billion miles on U.S. highways every year.

Until recently, Silicon Valley has been slow to react to the opportunity. Since Google launched its self-driving car project in 2009, robotaxis have been the sector’s focal point.

A major benefit of self-driving trucks is that the technology they require is simpler to develop. For a driverless ride-hailing service to exist, the car needs to take passengers anywhere in the city. That would require continual mapping to stay up to date, whereas 18-wheelers spend the bulk of their time on the same highways. “It’s basically a straight road where you’re not really even shifting gears, much less having the opportunity to run into a building,” said one industry expert.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is the potential so great for self-driving trucks ?
  2. What are the weaknesses in using self-driving long-haul trucks?

OM in the News: The Intelligent Tire

Goodyear’s intelligent tire uses a sensor, machine-learning algorithms and cloud computing.

The tire, once the most basic of automobile parts, is getting a tech upgrade. Goodyear Tire & Rubber is developing a so-called intelligent tire outfitted with a sensor and proprietary machine-learning algorithms.

The hope is that the tires will help self-driving cars brake at a shorter distance and communicate with autonomous driving systems, reports The Wall Street Journal (March 20, 2020). “We see the tire playing a more important role than ever,” said  Goodyear’s CEO. “With the onset of autonomous vehicles, the role of the tire in the performance and safety of the vehicle would increase if we can make that tire intelligent.” (Researchers estimate that 10% to 30% of all vehicles will be fully self driving by 2030).

Goodyear already sells tires that can measure temperature and pressure. The company’s “intelligent” tires have a more advanced sensor to track dozens more measurements such as tire wear, inflation and road-surface conditions. The data is tracked continuously, sent to the cloud and analyzed in real time. The goal is for a self-driving vehicle to adjust and respond to the measurements instantaneously.

For example, if the tire senses that the car is driving over a slick road in cold temperatures, the vehicle will be able to automatically slow down and avoid sudden steering movements, while factoring in the tire’s tread and wear. Experiments showed that self-driving vehicles using Goodyear’s intelligent tires can shorten the stopping distance lost by wear-and-tear on a tire by about 30%. Goodyear’s new technology is expected to be used by consumers by 2021.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Referring to Chapter 2 in your Heizer/Render/Munson OM text, how does Goodyear plan to achieve competitive advantage?
  2. What external factors might slow the introduction and success of this new tire?

OM in the News: GM’s Risky OM Strategy

Building a GM Bolt EV.

“It becomes pretty clear that to win in the future, you’ve got to win with electric and driverless vehicles. This is the future of transportation,” says Mary Barra, CEO of GM, in the Businessweek (Sept. 23, 2019) cover story.

Taking vast resources from businesses that make money and moving them toward businesses that (so far) lose mountains of it is a very risky bet. But the real gamble is timing. GM, which is pushing hard into electrics and autonomy faster than any other carmaker, could be blowing cash for years before there’s any payoff. Already, its Cruise Automation unit has postponed plans to deploy autonomous cars this year. If driverless and EVs take off more slowly, then GM will have prematurely jettisoned thousands of skilled veterans and killed off its smaller gasoline models. Worse, it could cede a chunk of profits from the remaining decades of the internal combustion era.

Barra is adamant that GM will sell a million EVs a year in the very near future, while lowering costs and gaining an economy-of-scale edge that Tesla would envy. But Cruise Automation (which GM bought in 2016 for $1.5 billion), was losing money then and continues to do so. Some rivals, like Toyota, which thinks autonomous driving could be decades away, are moving with greater caution. But how could any CEO simply turn her back on a windfall in ride-hailing that McKinsey sees generating $1.3 trillion by 2030? And how could Barra discount the possibility that a too-timid GM could become the next Kodak or BlackBerry?

GM designers have come up with 18 different prototypes using the carmaker’s next-generation battery pack, including sedans, SUVs, sports cars, and autonomous vehicles. As GM lays off old-line engineers, it is hiring coders, software and AI engineers, and battery experts. While it’s a given that GM’s EVs need to get better fast (Chevy Bolts lose $9,000 apiece), Barra at the same time has to keep money flowing even as U.S. and China vehicle sales slide.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Conduct a brief SWOT analysis on GM’s strategy.
  2. What are student impressions about the timing of EV’s acceptance?

OM in the News: The Self-Driving Postal Truck

The U.S. Postal Service is testing self-driving trucks on a 1,000-mile mail run between Phoenix and Dallas, the post office’s first use of the technology for long hauls. The move comes as investors and vehicle makers are spending millions on trucking automation, reports The Wall Street Journal (May 22, 2019).

The pilot uses big rigs supplied by autonomous trucking firm TuSimple to haul trailers on five round trips between distribution centers. The 22-hour trip along three interstate highways is normally serviced by outside trucking companies that use 2-driver teams to comply with federal regulations limiting drivers’ hours behind the wheel. The vehicle can continue operating without the hours-of-service restrictions of a human driver.

The Postal Service, which has been losing money for several years as letter volume has declined, is trying to restrain operating costs and is seeking ways to cut fuel expenses, improve truck safety and use its fleet more efficiently. Proponents of autonomous vehicle technology believe long-haul trucking, where operators say they have difficulty recruiting and retaining drivers, is a promising market for expanded use of the technology.

The TuSimple system uses cameras that the company says see more than half a mile ahead to spot emergency vehicles, pedestrians and road hazards. TuSimple’s technology allows “driveway-to-driveway” autonomous runs and its trucks navigate surface streets on delivery routes in Arizona for other customers..

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What is driving this USPS initiative?
  2. How will this affect the trucking industry, if successful?

OM in the News: Ford Tests Walking Robot Deliveries

Walking robots deployed from self-driving vans to deliver mail parcels could soon be seen marching up to homeowners’ doorsteps. The project is the product of a new partnership between Ford Motor and Agility Robotics. The companies are aiming to deploy early next year up to 100 autonomous Ford vehicles carrying a robot that can stand upright and walk from the van to front doors, writes The Wall Street Journal (May 22, 2019).

Agility’s robots—resembling a headless human—have the ability to climb stairs and move across lawns, which should help them deliver packages of up to 40 pounds. The partnership comes as Ford ramps up its ambitions in autonomous transportation with various technologies. In 2017, Ford said it would invest $1 billion in self-driving startup Argo AI over a five-year period. Last year, the company struck a deal with delivery startup Postmates to test self-driving vehicles for delivering groceries.

Few, if any, partnerships with a major U.S. corporation are testing upright delivery robots in public. Some startups and Amazon have been using robot fleets that carry goods inside rolling robots. The Agility-Ford team will focus on mail parcel delivery, though other applications, such as grocery delivery, aren’t ruled out.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What factors might delay the successful rollout of this project?
  2. Why is Ford entering the delivery business?

 

OM in the News: Honda to Invest $2.75 Billion in GM’s Self-Driving Cars

Honda’s investment will give the auto maker a 5.7% stake in GM Cruise.

Honda is investing $2.75 billion in GM’s self-driving car unit, for the joint development of a mass-produced fully autonomous car, writes The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 7, 2018). Auto makers and technology giants have been scrambling to plant stakes in a transportation landscape that is swiftly being reshaped by technology. Honda will work with GM Cruise LLC to develop a driverless car from the ground up that can be manufactured in high volumes and deployed globally. (GM set up Cruise as a separate business unit to draw in investors who don’t want exposure to the cyclical, low-margin business of manufacturing cars).

Honda’s decision to invest in GM’s self-driving arm reflects a culture change under way at the Japanese car maker, which long prided itself on its engineering prowess, shunning technologies developed by outside companies. One industry analyst said he expects only a handful of “winners” to emerge from the race to commercialize driverless vehicles. That prospect and the large capital outlays required to develop the technology could lead to more collaboration among automotive competitors.

Car companies have been teaming up with tech firms and suppliers to develop driverless technology. GM’s pact with Honda is a further sign that traditional auto makers will look to join forces with one another as they try to fend off Waymo and others vying to lead in a technology that could upend the transportation sector.

Fiat Chrysler has joined a BMW-led consortium to develop self-driving car technology with the aim of producing fully automated vehicles by 2021. BMW launched the partnership with Intel and Israeli car-camera software provider Mobileye. Toyota just announced it would invest $500 million in Uber to work jointly on autonomous vehicles. Uber will integrate its self-driving technology into Toyota minivans for use in Uber’s ride-hailing network.

Classroom questions:

  1. Name other companies that are forming “alliances” ( a topic in Chapter 5).
  2. Why are such alliances useful in designing goods and services?

OM in the News: Vision-Automation Technology is Taking over the Factory Floor

 

Humans overseeing the toppings at a German frozen-pizza plant, a task now within the reach of technology.

Robots that see underpin the future of self-driving cars, humanoid robots and autonomous drones, writes The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 14, 2018). Now, food manufacturers are combining advances in laser vision with artificial-intelligence software so that automated arms can carry out more-complex tasks, such as slicing chicken cutlets precisely or inspecting toppings on machine-made pizzas.

Being able to see is a major frontier in robotics and automation—crossing it is key to autonomous vehicles that can navigate obstacles, humanoid robots that can more closely integrate with humans and drones that can fly more safely. Companies world-wide are investing in computer vision-based technology.  Intel recently bought Mobileye for $15 billion, in part for the Israeli company’s vision-based driver-assistance technology.

Food manufacturers have been early adopters of new technologies from canning to bread slicers, and vision automation has been used for years for tasks such as reading bar codes and sorting packaged products. Leaders are finding the technology valuable because robot eyes outpace the human eye at certain tasks. Now technical improvements, tougher materials and declining prices mean Tyson can integrate vision technology in its new $300 million chicken-processing plant. The technology helps optimize the use of each part of the bird.

Advances so far allow vision technology to ensure frozen pizzas have the correct toppings. Other applications include the ultrasonic slicing of cheese, cutting bread rolls with water jets and picking pancakes off a production line. Car makers, historically the biggest user of vision technology, are using it for emergency braking and scanning road signs; logistics companies deploy it to more quickly identify packages, and consumer electronics companies to position liquid-crystal display screens more precisely than is possible with the naked eye.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. Why are vision systems becoming an important OM tool?

2. Will driver-assistance technology really eliminate the need for drivers? Why? When?

 

OM in the News: The Driverless Truck Vs. The Teamsters Union

It was the tale of a successful, long-distance beer run. A robotic truck coasted driverless 120 miles down Interstate 25 in Colorado on its way to deliver 51,744 cans of Budweiser. “Driverless vehicles threaten to dramatically reduce America’s 1.7-million trucking jobs,” writes the Los Angeles Times (Nov. 23, 2017). It is the front end of a wave of automation that technologists have been warning for years. Some predict it could rival the impact of the economic globalization and the resulting off-shoring of jobs.

At California start-up Embark, there already are indications of how trucking jobs are about to change. The company has made test-runs in which it is using self-driving trucks to ship refrigerators from a warehouse in Texas to a distribution center in Palm Springs. There is a driver in the cab, but for the bulk of the ride, when the truck is on the I-10 Freeway, that person is not driving. Eventually, there could be nobody in the cab for legs of the trip. Embark’s CEO says truck drivers still will have jobs and their quality of life will be much improved. Instead of making long hauls thousands of miles, he says they could stay in their communities and handle the more-complicated short hops at the beginning and end of the trips, along with loading and unloading.

Teamsters executives are skeptical, particularly as many pilot programs exhibit a diminished role for blue-collar workers. Volvo, for example, boasts how the autonomous garbage truck it developed doesn’t need a driver in the cab to navigate the route, freeing up that person to load the trash bins. Two jobs appear to become one. Many of the new positions created by such technology look nothing like the stable trucking jobs that are a staple of blue-collar America. They involve coding, data analysis and operation of complicated computer systems.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What are the plusses and minuses of driverless trucks?
  2. When do you think the autonomous vehicle revolution will actually impact society?

OM in the News: Autonomous Cars May Not Need a Driver, But They Still Need a Good Mechanic

One of the cars being used by Waymo in the Phoenix area to test driverless technology

Waymo, one of the leading forces in self-driving technology, is enlisting the largest auto retailer in the U.S., AutoNation, to maintain and repair the growing number of driverless vehicles Waymo is testing around the country. Waymo — a unit of Google’s parent, Alphabet — is moving a step closer to putting driverless vehicles into ride-hailing fleets that would serve the general public, not just its own employees. Maintaining expensive and technology-packed self-driving vehicles is a main challenge for using them in moneymaking businesses, like ride-hailing fleets, writes The New York Times (Nov. 3, 2017). 

Says AutoNation’s CEO. “In most cases, driverless vehicles in such fleets will have to be on the road almost around the clock to offset the cost of the sensors, computer chips, software and other systems that allow them to drive safely and reach their destinations without human operators. These vehicles need to be in service for hundreds of thousands of miles, much more than personal-use vehicles, to make them economically viable. To do that, you have to do much more proactive, preventative maintenance than what a normal person would do on a car.”

Because the vehicles are intended to operate without drivers, breakdowns have to be avoided and parts replaced when signs of wear first appear, not when they fail or when a warning light comes on. They need to work not 99% of the time, but 100% of the time.

Auto dealers, like AutoNation, sell cars, but a big chunk of their profits comes from servicing vehicles. They are looking for ways to become more relevant if car usage becomes more of a shared service.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. How is this an OM decision by Waymo?
  2. How will the auto industry be impacted by driverless cars?

OM in the News: Domino’s and the Driverless Car

“In the race to develop self-driving cars, much of the attention has focused on ferrying people,” writes The New York Times (Aug. 30, 2017). But delivering goods – from groceries to packages to books and more – may offer a considerable opportunity as well. The Domino’s pizza chain this week plans to start testing deliveries using a self-driving Ford Fusion sedan outfitted with enough sensors, electronics and software to find its way to customers in Ann Arbor, home of the U. of Michigan. The possibilities of pizza delivery are not hard to imagine. Americans already take delivery of billions of dollars’ worth of products sold by Amazon and other online retailers. In the future, a retailer like Home Depot could deliver building materials directly to job sites.

The Domino’s experiment offers Ford a chance to showcase its technology. As far as using such cars as a mode of delivery, Ford expects to begin producing a fully autonomous vehicle that will have no steering wheel and no pedals in 2021. Driverless vehicles are not a rare sight in Ann Arbor. The university is operating a vast pilot project to develop connected-car technologies, and self-driving Fords or Lexuses can often be seen navigating downtown streets.

Because there is no delivery person to bring pizzas to the door, customers will have to walk outside to retrieve their order. They will be alerted by text when the car is nearing their home and when it arrives. A red arrow on the car’s rear window tells customers to “start here” and directs them to a touch screen. Keying in the last four digits of the customer’s phone number causes the window to open, revealing an insulated compartment large enough to hold 5 pizzas and 4 side orders. One customer advantage of taking delivery from a self-driving car: If there’s no driver, there’s no tip.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What are the implications from an OM perspective of the proposed system?
  2. Do your students view this concept favorably?

 

OM in the News: Amazon’s Drive to Revolutionize Logistics

Drones are a focus for Amazon

Amazon’s new initiative could help the company overcome one of its biggest logistical complications and costs: delivering packages quickly. Amazon is navigating the use of autonomous vehicles including trucks, forklifts and drones to move goods, reports The Wall Street Journal (April 25, 2017). In addition, driverless cars could play a broader role in the future of last-mile delivery, enabling easier package drop-offs.  “Amazon has a plan in place to shake up the entire supply chain as we know it today,” says one industry analyst.

There have been early signs of Amazon’s interest in autonomous-vehicle technology. The firm just won a patent for coordinating autonomous vehicles in a roadway. Over the past few years, Amazon has been building out its supply chain and logistics network, aiming to deliver more of its own packages. It also envisions transporting goods on a large scale for other companies, one day competing with delivery giants UPS and FedEx.

The company is leasing 40 planes and has bought thousands of branded truck trailers. Tractor trailers have long been considered a likely first target for implementing widespread driverless technology, in part due to how regularly they drive the same stretches of highway–so Amazon is very interested in autonomous trucking. Humans have a 10-hour limit when driving, but a self-driving truck could drive through the night. Instead of taking 4 days to drive coast to coast, it will take a day and a half.

The biggest portion of Amazon’s spending and energy has gone toward another type of autonomous means of transport: drones. That 2013 initiative is further along and is expected to continue to be the major focus of the company. Drones could communicate or pair up with driverless vehicles, for example, to coordinate deliveries.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Describe Amazon’s driverless ideas.
  2. Why does the firm want to get more involved in transporting goods?

OM in the News: Intel, Mobileye, and Autonomous Cars

In the world of driverless cars, household names like Google and Uber have raced ahead of rivals, building test vehicles and starting trials on city streets. “But when it comes to what is under the hood, an array of lesser-known companies will most likely supply the technology required to bring driverless cars to the masses,” writes The New York Times (March 14, 2017). And in a $15.3 billion deal to acquire the Israeli firm Mobileye, Intel just moved to corner the market on how much of that technology is developed. Jerusalem-based Mobileye makes sensors and cameras for these vehicles.

Intel estimates the market for autonomous-driving systems, services and data will reach $70 billion by 2030. “You can think of the car as a server on wheels,” says Intel’s CEO. “The average autonomous car will throw out 4 terabytes of data a day, so this is one of the most important markets and one of the fastest-growing markets. The deal with Mobileye merges the intelligent eyes of the autonomous car with the intelligent brain that actually drives the car.”

 Mobileye’s technology helps a car see and understand the space around it, providing functions such as automatically keeping a car in its lane. It includes 360-degree vision and mapping, and integrates various sensor elements such as cameras, radar, sonar and the laser-sensing technology known as LiDAR. 

Intel has struggled lately with the persistent decline of PC sales, which show little sign of reversing. To drive growth, the company is focusing on artificial intelligence, and self-driving cars are among the more promising applications of AI.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is Intel leaving its core business? Advantages? Disadvantages?
  2. What is Mobileye’s strength?