Engineering Knowledge Copilot for Bertrandt

Objective

Business Goal:

Preserve and share engineering expertise across the organization and accelerate the onboarding and productivity of engineers, so that expert know-how is not lost and both experienced and newly hired engineers can access it easily in daily work.

POC Goal:

Within the Venture Client framework, validate a working copilot in a controlled pilot that:

• Demonstrates a genuinely low-effort way to capture knowledge — from existing documents and directly from employees in the flow of work, ideally by voice
• Provides a usable, easy-to-operate copilot accessible via a web interface or Microsoft Teams
• Delivers reliable, source-referenced answers on selected engineering use cases (e.g. design guidelines, checklists, release/approval processes)
• Shows measurable user acceptance among the German and international pilot user groups
• Uses (automotive) cockpit module development as the lead use case, with metal as the material focus; extension to further modules (e.g. door) and materials is a possible next step after the PoC
• Delivers a working MVP that pilot users in Germany and at the international site in Morocco can test

The PoC should deliver a working pilot within approximately 3 to 6 months and is expected to focus on a limited set of use cases and a defined pilot user group before broader rollout and extension. Given the emphasis on reusable building blocks, a provider that can start from an existing solution can enter the PoC with a working tool rather than only a concept.

Long-Term Goal:

Establish a scalable engineering knowledge copilot that Bertrandt can continue to extend and, ideally, further develop itself without deep IT expertise. Potential extension stages include role-aware answers, self-updating from new project learnings captured via text or voice, running alongside a live CAD session, and connecting to external benchmark databases.

Solution Requirements

Functional

• Answer engineering questions based on internal knowledge, e.g. on design guidelines, and support daily engineering tasks — for example general design guidelines for metal and plastic parts (draw depths, radii, draft angles, tool/slider directions), with (automotive) cockpit module development as the lead use case
• Support the creation and revision of DFMEA and documentation, summarize specifications and help create status reports
• Make capturing knowledge as effortless as possible: ingest existing documents (PowerPoint, Word, PDF, Excel) and, crucially, let employees contribute tacit know-how with minimal effort in the flow of work — by simply speaking (voice input) as well as by text
• Provide reliable, source-referenced answers with traceability so outputs can be verified and hallucinations avoided
• Search and reference general legal and homologation requirements (e.g. ECE regulations, NCAP criteria) from generally accessible sources alongside internal knowledge
• Never invent compliance-relevant content: for laws, norms and guidelines the system must state when no source is found instead of generating an unsupported answer
• Support German and English, including for international teams
• Be accessible in daily work via a web interface or Microsoft Teams

Technical & Security

• Deployable within Bertrandt's cloud environment, currently Microsoft Azure, with hosting in the EU
• Focus on internal data, while allowing enrichment with external data where useful; no uncontrolled exposure of internal knowledge
• Built on existing products or reusable modules where possible rather than a full greenfield development
• Designed to avoid vendor lock-in, so Bertrandt can continue to operate and extend the solution without depending on a single provider or deep IT expertise — ideally extendable by Bertrandt itself with little or no programming knowledge
• Able to pass Bertrandt's procurement, compliance and IT-security requirements (specific GDPR / IT-security criteria to be confirmed by procurement)
• Show compatibility with Bertrandt's internal AI framework (“AI stack”), which is oriented toward maximum openness and compatibility; details will be shared under NDA at PoC start
• Initial assessment (“first guess”) of the requirements for achieving TISAX certification and the potential challenges, particularly with regard to future scalability.

Operational readiness

• Deployable as a working pilot within approximately 3 to 6 months
• Able to involve Bertrandt's internal AI/IT team early (e.g. at PoC kick-off) and to show the team how to further train and extend the copilot

Nice-to-haves

• Role-aware behavior: recognize (or let the user set) the user's role and adapt terminology and required answer precision accordingly
• Voice interaction in addition to text
• Self-updating from new knowledge captured during projects
• Ability to run alongside a live CAD session and provide design feedback
• Ability to connect to external benchmark databases as a later extension
• Ideally also with image recognition, to run analyses (Even better would be a direct interface to the CAD system, to "see" directly whether something is incorrect)
• Extension to customer-specific design guidelines (e.g. OEM-specific CAD modelling requirements) after the PoC
• Analyze CAD-derived images or sections (e.g. screenshots provided as PDF/PowerPoint) and check them against applicable design guidelines

Out of scope

• A solution requiring lengthy interviews that pull engineers out of productive work to capture knowledge
• A pure off-the-shelf product with no adaptation to Bertrandt's knowledge and use cases
• A closed solution that Bertrandt cannot continue to operate or extend if the provider is no longer involved

Example of such an application

• Employee: I'm currently designing a fender and changing the radius of the headlight wrap from 5 mm to 3 mm. Is this still manufacturable at all?
• AI: Could you provide me with the following information: sheet thickness, material, and approximate draw depth?
• Employee: (provides the information)
• AI: Yes, it should still be manufacturable. This has also been implemented in the following vehicle projects: POxxx, …
  (ideally with a reference to the corresponding component or even to the CAD file)

Partner Requirements

The partner should:

• Brings an existing productized solution or reusable core components (not a pure greenfield custom-development project), and can also advise on how to best capture the knowledge and turn it into agents
• Headquartered in Europe, with EU-based hosting and no dependency on US-only infrastructure
• Able to work in German and English (international teams work in English)