Assembly simulations, 3D components or virtual vehicle construction: Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Volkswagen developers have been performing many computer-intensive tasks from their desks at home. With a so-called Citrix cloud connection, a small team created the prerequisites for sufficient computing power within days last spring. Technical Development (TE) is thus one of many corporate divisions that work digitally and at the same time, more sustainably than before corona.
From the home office, a laptop including software such as Skype, Outlook and the like is sufficient for most employees. This is not the case for experts in pre-development, series construction, simulation or virtual validation. They deal with huge amounts of data and need high computing power. That’s why their workplace used to be permanently located on the Wolfsburg factory premises – also to guarantee data security and protect the developers’ know-how. The Covid-19 virus changed everything: computer-aided development in TE became impossible, downtime was imminent, and a solution had to be found quickly. A task force made up of TE and Group IT found a solution by expanding a cloud solution that had been in use as a pilot project since late 2019.