Highly Efficient and Client-Oriented

With the acquisition of the French company D2T in 2015, FEV significantly expanded its expertise and global team of experts for advanced development tools. By now – a year almost to the day after the merger – the international development services and test solutions provider, FEV, is taking account of the progressive integration of D2T: D2T and FEV Test Systems have been combined into the newly-founded “FEV  Software and Testing Solutions” business branch, which employs more than 400 experts at eleven engineering and service locations. “D2T and FEV now have an excellent collaboration, not just within the company, but also within joint development teams,” explains Dr. Ralf Marquard, Executive Vice President and COO of FEV Group Holding GmbH. “Particularly with regard to our clients, we are now able to present ourselves as one company – as a brand with a central contact person and many coordinated products and services. Our three service areas –planning and implementation of test centers and test benches, testing products, and services help our clients achieve highly-efficient test installations and short development cycles.”

From Test Bench to State-of-the-Art Test Center

On the basis of best practice solutions and years of experience, FEV plans tests benches and entire test centers. On one hand, this is done at the request of the client; on the other, it enables FEV to expand its own testing capacities. This is how, in automotive centers across the globe, engine, transmission, full powertrain, battery, and end-of-line test benches are being created in various configurations. These test benches allow efficient development work in accordance with existing and upcoming legal requirements. “Whether the Center for Mobile Propulsion at the RWTH Aachen or the FEV Endurance Test Center in Brehna: some of the most advanced test centers in the world have been created by FEV and implemented by our multi-disciplinary project teams in collaboration with the respective local experts,” explains Marquard.
The heart of a successful project is the Consulting, where the specification is created and the layout of the test center is determined. Thanks to a tightly-knit network of experts, FEV cover all typical phases of a project and offers to perform partial projects as well as full turnkey implementation projects, depending on the customer’s needs. FEV has successfully completed more than 300 such projects worldwide over the past decades.

Efficient Products

The product range from FEV Software and Testing Solutions includes robust and highly precise conditioning and measurement systems and a wide range of synchronous and asynchronous machines. Furthermore, FEV offers a variety of special test benches for targeted optimizations on combustion engines. These special test benches are used by FEV for the development process as well as the end-of-line tests, precisely adjusted to the requirements of the client, and are finally delivered as turnkey end products.
In order to guarantee efficient operation of the different systems, FEV has developed a series of software solutions. While advanced automation systems increase the efficiency of the test cycles, the data management and assessment tools such as FEVFLEX and FEVALYS achieve a central connection of the different test benches within a test center, or even across several test centers. The calibration software TOPEXPERT also makes it possible to shift significant parts of the development work from the test bench to the desk.

Comprehensive Service Over the Entire Life Cycle

At FEV, projects do not end with the delivery and commissioning of a test bench or a piece of equipment. Only regularly-maintained and calibrated tools guarantee highly accurate function; this also serves to extend their life spans in the long run. FEV offers service contracts suited to the individual products, entire test benches or even test centers. “For many clients, FEV employees are the ones responsible for the smooth operation of the testing process and those who also perform the regular maintenance work. In doing so, they do not restrict themselves to FEV technologies, but monitor all test systems that are used in a test center or test bench. Thanks to this comprehensive service, we achieve highly-efficient testing operations with short down times and set-up times,” explains Marquard.