Industrial Engineering #7 - Roopak Ingole, Cummins
Guest: Roopak Ingole | Director - Advanced Electronic Systems & Strategy, Cummins
As the uncertainty of government subsidies and support for continued investment in energy infrastructure and automotive improvements looms, I was curious to learn more about how these shifts have impacted both the industry and development processes for key automotive suppliers. With a market cap of over $45 billion, Cummins (NYSE: CMI) is one of the largest American powertrain manufacturers and builds everything from engines, generators, and power systems to vital components like aftertreatment systems, turbo chargers, braking systems and real-time electronic modules and controls software. Leading electronic systems and strategy at Cummins, Roopak Ingole is responsible for staying one step ahead of macro-environment changes and navigating his team through these regulatory and industry shifts. We spoke about his view on the global automotive industry ecosystem, the transformation of embedded systems over the years, and the key factors he’s looking for before deploying AI applications in his workflow.
Can you please share more about your background? How did you get started in the automotive sector?
My journey started back in India. I graduated with a degree in computer science but then decided to move into electronics engineering since I was more excited by that space. This is how I started my career in the automotive sector focusing on embedded software, working on power generation and electronic systems but ultimately connected to energy at the broader scale.
I moved to the US in 2004 and have been with Cummins for almost 15 years now. In between that, I worked at Motorola Solutions for about seven years to learn more about the communication space, and then I came back to the energy/power and automotive sector.
I am now the Director of Advanced Electronics Systems & Strategy and help lead strategy for corporate research at Cummins. My primary focus is to look at new technology trends in the electronics and software space and recommend which technology Cummins should consider for adoption in the next generation of powertrains.
My goal is to understand how these systems need to evolve to improve the efficiency of our powertrain so we can consume less energy and produce more power at the same time. Our ultimate goal is to make people’s lives better by powering a more prosperous world.
What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the energy and power sector over the last few years?
Since 2004 when I started working in this space, the majority of the trends or changes I’ve seen across the power generation, automotive, consumer and commercial vehicle industry have been heavily driven by regulations. Until more recently, the biggest change was regulatory bodies like the EPA or CARB, or government mandates in Europe, China, and India, forcing companies to reduce their emissions. But now, regulation is not the only driver for innovation in this sector. Many companies have initiated their own internal goals to reduce their carbon footprints and also improve the overall cost of operations for fleets. This drives the motivation to reduce carbon emissions and understand how to make cleaner energy solutions going forward.
This has been the primary driver in the clean energy sector over the past five to six years. Some of the new solutions to generate clean electricity aren’t mature enough for commercial deployments, but they’re picking up and this is the biggest change I see coming up.
Will shifting priorities in the current administration impact corporate climate change policies?
We are yet to see what the top priorities are for the current administration in the United States. From an overall commercial vehicle sector perspective, I believe the high-level priority will remain unchanged. Ultimately what matters to our customers is the cost of operations, and the biggest operational cost comes from the consumption of fossil fuels. While innovations focus on reducing the cost of operation, it will eventually help in reducing emissions too. This will drive innovation in this space to make systems cleaner, more cost-effective, and safer.
However, we are already experiencing a slowdown in the adoption of some of the newer clean technologies like BEVs (battery EVs) and FCEVs (fuel cell EVs). For example, our infrastructure is not quite ready for the introduction of larger electric semi-trucks or commercial vehicles due to an insufficient number of charging stations nationwide. The ecosystem exists for passenger cars but requires significant transformation to make it capable for commercial vehicles. This is why adoption may be slower than expected, and the same can be seen with hydrogen as a fuel source. We expect the commercial vehicle industry will still focus on conventional powertrains while classic internal combustion engines (ICE) with diesel, natural gas or gasoline will predominantly be used for quite a few years until the infrastructure is ready to adopt new technologies.
How has the process of building these embedded systems changed over the years?
20 years ago, the internet was only limited to desktop computers. Now, due to advancements in electronics, vehicles are fully connected to the internet. Moreover, due to the embedded software improvements, vehicles are now software driven more than mechanically driven. For example, you can see 70 to 80 electronic modules on a truck, and the vehicle is actually powered by millions of lines of code. Mechanical parts have to be there to propel the engine, but the actual control is now driven by software. End to end connectivity from cloud to vehicle is a major change. Due to this, the automotive sector is going through a significant paradigm shift towards Software Defined Vehicles.
From a development standpoint, the industry has also changed a lot. The tools and processes that were historically just limited to software development are now all actively being adopted for automotive development as well.
If you look at the industrial sector a few years back, it was very hierarchical but now there is a lot more collaboration across different teams and functions. Similar collaborative development is needed today to reduce the time to market for introducing any new feature. We always try to optimize how we can come together, reduce those barriers and gaps, and make the features available for our customers.
As you consider building these systems, which tools have you found most useful in your role?
AI-powered tools still need to prove themselves for the automotive sector. We use collaboration tools pretty heavily to communicate across teams for product life cycle management. Tools for requirements management, documentation generation, design, and PLM systems like PTC Integrity are also used. System engineering tools like Jira and Cameo, and control system development tools like Matlab and Simulink help reduce the gap between software engineers and mechanical engineers.
What factors do you consider when evaluating a new tool?
Security is prime for any organization. For example, I lead the research division and I'm very sensitive to data going out of our premises. For any new SaaS solution we look at, the first thing we consider is whether it can be deployed into our cloud instance to minimize the impact of data going outside our premises.
I am also looking for newer technologies that we can use to build our actual embedded software. I would be interested to look at AI tools that generate our embedded software right from our requirements so we can reduce the time for development. We are not looking to replace humans but we want to see how we can leverage the models first and then have our engineers build and validate it further in more detail.
If you could share one piece of advice with startups building these solutions, what would you recommend?
If you consider creating solutions for the automotive or commercial vehicle industry as a whole, cybersecurity and functional safety are very important because lives are at stake. Writing secure code while considering the necessary safety aspects with built-in redundancies is a really important perspective.
What is one trend in the automotive sector you’re watching today?
I'm spending time understanding global decarbonization efforts. Decarbonization is a very broad term, and under that, there are a lot of initiatives across each country and company. I'm trying to monitor the key initiatives happening in these spaces (such as hydrogen generation or water purification) and how they can be applied to the automotive sector so we can contribute to decarbonization efforts overall.
It’s a dual-intent goal. It’s not just about reducing emissions but simultaneously decreasing the overall cost of operations across the whole value chain of decarbonization.
Any final words for readers?
At Cummins, we’re all in on our mission to make the planet a better place by 2050, which we call PLANET 2050. To get there we have a Destination Zero strategy, where we’re working hard on creating technologies that produce cleaner and more sustainable energy. Digital technology is going to be a big part of this journey, and we’re on the lookout for some really talented engineers to help us build these cutting-edge solutions.
Though electric vehicles (EVs) provide the best clean power, we think conventional powertrains will still be the mainstay in the commercial vehicle world for a while. To make these powertrains cleaner, we’ll need a team of top-notch engineers from fields like mechanical, chemical, electrical, electronics, artificial intelligence, and data science. We encourage passionate engineers to visit our career site to learn more about active roles.
On a personal note, I’m really passionate about keeping our environment clean and safe, and that’s exactly what Cummins stands for. I’m lucky to be part of a company that shares my values and is committed to a safe environment.
As an advisor, I’m part of an exciting project called Wattr.AI, where we’re evaluating the use of AI to save water and cut down on energy usage. This work is going to help us save a lot of water and reduce emissions by lowering power consumption. This work is going to help us save a lot of water and reduce emissions by lowering power consumption.
This series focuses on navigating technical software decisions within industrial companies. From optimizing infrastructure choices and leveraging DevOps best practices to harnessing the power of cloud technologies and improving data workflows, our guests will highlight how they've considered these decisions and implemented new solutions across their organization. If you're similarly excited about leveraging technology to empower our national industrial base and/or building solutions focused on this category, please reach out. My email is ananya@schematicventures.com – I’d love to connect!