Jaguar Land Rover Standardizes on MATLAB for Developing, Packaging, and Sharing Engineering Tools

The development of modern vehicles requires the analysis of vast amounts of data. In the past, teams at Jaguar Land Rover each used different tools and approaches to analyze the terabytes of simulation and test data logged during vehicle development. Some teams relied on spreadsheets and manual processes, others on scripts and tools developed in a variety of languages and custom software packages.

While some Jaguar Land Rover teams were already sharing tools informally, there was no mechanism for reviewing or managing the tools. As a result, the quality of tools varied widely, as did the effort put into packaging, distributing, and updating them.

Jaguar Land Rover now uses MATLAB for all engineering analysis and has established a central repository for MATLAB based tools developed by its engineers.

Jaguar Land Rover engaged MathWorks Consulting Services to work with a group of tool builders from across the business, coaching them on best practices in MATLAB application development. With this knowledge, the engineers doing the work can now build tools themselves.

These master builders then set about consolidating and improving existing tools, developing new applications, and disseminating their knowledge to colleagues.

In parallel, MathWorks consultants developed the MATLAB App Store, a web-based repository where Jaguar Land Rover’s engineers share apps and toolboxes. In the App Store, engineers can search for tools, rate apps, view download counts, and provide feedback to authors; they can also quickly download and install apps.

The most frequently downloaded item in the store is Engineering Data Toolbox (EDT), which lets engineers import logged data files into MATLAB and perform common time series data processing tasks such as merging, resampling, interpolating, and unit conversion.

Another app, Vehicle Feedback Database Analyser, interprets ECU error codes and other data collected from customers’ vehicles brought in for service at Jaguar Land Rover dealerships. Several hundred engineers use this app for warranty analysis and fault identification. Previously, some of these engineers had access to the raw data but no way of using it.

Other apps enable optimization of vehicle architecture and properties early in the design process, and provide a framework for defining and automatically extracting useful metrics, statistics, and events from raw test data.

In addition to apps for engineering data, the App Store includes a tool that uses machine learning techniques to classify new car buyers into socio-economic demographics, helping the Marketing team better understand and target customers.

Within the first 18 months the MATLAB App Store grew to contain over 100 internally authored apps and toolboxes, which were downloaded over 6000 times by almost 1000 users.

• Tool quality improved and tool development time reduced. Since the MATLAB App Store opened, the quality of engineering data analysis tools has increased. Developers take more pride in the tools they create because they know they will be widely used, and Jaguar Land Rover is building expertise in tool development.
• Collaboration and engineering productivity increased. In addition to avoiding duplication of effort, the MATLAB App Store enables engineers to become productive more quickly. New engineers can get the tools they need to do their jobs within minutes.
• Reliance on third-party software tools reduced.Since the rollout of MATLAB apps and the App Store, several Jaguar Land Rover teams have already brought specialist analysis in-house. This results in significant savings by reducing their reliance on third-party analysis tools and reports.