HIGH-TECH HUB

Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America (MBRDNA) opens its stunning new home in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley

Article by Gary Anderson – Pictures by Gary Anderson and Courtesy Daimler AG
 
Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America was established in 1994 to design and develop electronic systems in the car cabin. MBRDNA opened its headquarters in 1995 in Palo Alto, California, in the Stanford University Industrial Park near major developers for consumer electronics products and systems. It was the first automobile manufacturer to have a facility in the Silicon Valley, a move now followed by every other major automobile manufacturer in the world. As reported on page 18 of this issue, MBRDNA officially opened a brand-new headquarters and research facility in Sunnyvale November 19. The new labs are at the center of a circle defined by Stanford University and the offices of Google, Apple, and Facebook. 
Designed by MBRDNA from the ground up specifically to meet its unique set of research and development requirements, the new building will eventually accommodate approximately 400 staff members and research partners. When the facilities were opened, the international automotive press was invited to a series of workshops and tours. The building itself is impressive and trend-setting for its purpose of encouraging collaborative innovation.



The Missions of MBRDNA Silicon Valley

The overall focus of these labs is the burgeoning range of interactions between driver and passengers and the car beyond the basic act of driving. These functions include electronics-based entertainment, information, communications, navigation driver assistance, and some aspects of ride and handling. In today’s world, these functions are much more similar to and affected by what is going on in Silicon Valley than what goes on in the traditional centers for automotive  design and manufacturing.

Mercedes-Benz also has determined that many of the basic user-experience functions that take place in the car can be developed most effectively by partnering with Silicon Valley’s core companies rather than developing its own in-house expertise. Almost as important, many of the entrepreneurial companies that are developing new devices and applications for the automobile are themselves located in the valley.

Consequently it is simply much easier – when adapting an app or partnering with a small company to improve an existing app – if Mercedes engineers and designers responsible for the adaptation can work closely with the company to ensure that the product meets the demands and constraints of the automobile platform.

For all of these reasons, Mercedes-Benz came to the conclusion 18 years ago that it should locate a facility for its global product development activities in Northern California.



When I interviewed MBRDNA President and CEO Prof. Dr. Johann Jungwirth – who never uses his full name or honorifics and is known throughout Daimler as “JJ” – he noted there is another overarching reason for having the staff members who do this work in Silicon Valley: the culture. The rhythm and attitudes at both the staff and management level that are appropriate for designing and manufacturing an automobile that might last as long as two decades are simply different from those needed to develop electronic devices for direct personal use that go through generations of development in mere months and rarely have life spans of more than two to four years.

One characteristic that separates Mercedes-Benz activities from those of many other auto manufacturers in Silicon Valley is that in the technology areas where MBRDNA has responsibilities, staff members in Sunnyvale are responsible for all phases of product development – from conceptualization, through design, development, testing and installation, to manufacturing oversight, maintenance and continued development.
Since establishing facilities in Palo Alto in the mid-1990s, the company has discovered other advantages to being in Silicon Valley. The same personal networks that develop when people move from company to company and maintain ties with friends performing similar technical work have proven to be invaluable in staying abreast of social developments and entrepreneurial concepts. 

With the company now located in larger quarters where additional staff can be hired, two specific new functions were added to the group’s repertoire: monitoring trends in society and technology, and identifying and capitalizing on new business concepts that transcend the core business area of automobile manufacturing. These include ideas as diverse as maintaining urban fleets of smart cars that can be rented by the hour (now in business as Car2Go), and providing pick-up and drop-off services for children for after-school activities, a business in the testing stages in the immediate area near the Sunnyvale headquarters.



Presently, approximately 100 employees occupy the building with a like number of researchers and engineers seconded from partner companies, suppliers, and contractors working on the premises on a regular basis. Offering ample room to grow, this impressive piece of design and architecture should be an effective part of the global Daimler network for many years to come.
 


The key feature that impresses a visitor is the facility’s openness. The interior architects successfully managed to avoid the cliche of “cube farms” – acres of cubicles segregating activities and individuals from one other – that are characteristic of many high-tech facilities. Instead, each of the three floors is divided into general work areas by walls and functional facilities, but within each work area, the few necessary dividers that provide noise insulation for conferences and meetings are made of glass. Leading-edge video conference facilities, “huddle rooms” for active collaboration, “white walls” that encourage visual exchanges of ideas, soundproof phone rooms for conference calls with remote facilities, and quiet rooms to encourage individual concentration are a part of each work area. And of course, there are soundproof game rooms with foosball and video games on each floor for relaxation breaks.



LEFT: Of course, in a facility that is designing software and hardware that will find its way into Mercedes automobiles, there is a well-designed “Car Lab” – a workshop with everything from electronic test equipment to automotive lifts and working areas that look like any dealer service area. A nearby customer-experience research lab has workstations and simulators to test new equipment and software in realistic cockpits.



Researchers are working with partners at Google and other electronics companies to develop seamless interfaces between personal mobile devices like Google Glass and the vehicle’s navigation and information systems.



The Diamond Grille provides varied high-quality food services while themed snack bars at the ends of each floor offer quick access to  everything from a cappuccino or ice-cream sundae to a make-it-yourself fruit salad.



Interior walls in each workteam area can be used as “white walls” to capture ideas visually for collaborative creativity.



Several interior simulators, including this futuristic testbed for heads-up displays, are used to test and improve the user experience for drivers and passengers.



With the labs responsible for taking their projects from concept stage all the way to installation in automobiles, hardware test beds are as much a part of the scenery as software-development networks.
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Themed break areas with snacks available are at both ends of each work floor.