My Industrial Placement at Bentley

My placement year at Bentley Motors has provided me with a detailed experience of the ways-of-working and development process within the automotive industry. My placement year consisted of rotations within the Manufacturing and Research & Development divisions.

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Launch Quality Centre (Factory Problem Solving team)

I completed this rotation from August 2024 to February 2025. My daily tasks within the LQC focused on solving manufacturing issues faced on preseries and current vehicles. I worked on 6 different manufacturing issues during my rotation which all focused on Bentayga vehicles. I used the 8D methodology to solve issues which began with identifying the root cause of the issue, all the way to conducting a lessons learnt process. My KPM projects required cross-functional collaboration with colleagues form different areas of the business. Leading the analysis of a punctured HV cable issue was a great example of this, which required collaboration with the production, engineering body and trim team as well as the launch team to develop a viable solution leading to a €100k cost save. Alongside KPM projects worked on, I also worked on 2 data processing projects for the entire Launch Quality Centre team. I developed a tool to automate postprocessing of gap and flush data points around the vehicle using Macro VBA, saving around 3 hours of analysis time per 20 vehicles. The tool was also used to identify upstream processes on the production line causing audit failures, as part of a line process change trialled earlier in my placement year. The project focused on providing real-time KPM data tracker for the Factory Problem Solving team breaking issues down by categories such as model year, variant and calendar year. This has also been added to the LQC’s section of Bentley’s intranet website for use by all colleagues.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

My daily work within the ADAS team focused on verification and validation of functions including Adaptive Cruise Control(ACC) and Active Lane Departure Warning (ALDW). This included the use of tools such as CANape to analyse ECU signals to ensure compliance with UNR79 for example during testing of the Emergency Lane Keeping System functionality. I also assisted in planning and carrying out functional safety tests in which the performance of an ADAS system is assessed during fault injection, in which I performed this for the Active Cruies Control functionality, left turn assist and evasive steering support functionalities. I have also been involved in the Digital Prototyping initiative within the Vehicle Motion department. During my time, I led 3 different projects in which the first was project managing an Autonomous Emergency Braking simulation project for the world’s first luxury urban SUV . I liaised with colleagues from Porsche ensuring data including Electronic Stability Control calibration values and brake testing results were provided to ensure initial simulation results for all vehicle variants are provided by the end of 2025. I also worked on simulating the thermal deformation of the front radar assembly on a GT Continental to ensure values obtained were similar to supplier provided thresholds and that yaw and pitch rotation did not exceed regulation limits. Finally, I developed a Python-based tool to calculate the attenuation of the signal emitted by the 'nano radar' through a four-layer paint structure on the front bumper, ensuring compliance with UNR79 guidelines. This was in preparation for the upcoming release of the world’s first luxury SUV.

Product Maintenance Placement

My 3 week placement in the production maintenance team focused on developing a simulation environment for the Unitree Go2 Edu quadruped. The aim of the quadruped is to navigate autonomously around the factory floor to detect leaks and equipment overheating around the factory. Using ROS2, I was able to simulate autonomous navigation of the quadruped through waypoint navigation along with realistic gait generation of the robot using the Nav2 and SLAM frameworks. This would be one of the first ‘spot robots’ to be used in the VW group. A video introducing the idea can be found via the following link on LinkedIn :https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7371935211560968192/.

Summary

My cross-departmental work meant I was nomianted for the 'Industrial Placement Student of the Year' award in which I managed to secure a top 8 place out of a cohort of 100+!!! My industrial placement has allowed me to experience a holistic viewpoint of the automotive sector. In manufacturing, I learnt and applied a completely different problem-solving methodology and developed my ability to liaise cross-functionally all around the business. My time in the ADAS Vehicle Motion team has allowed me to utilise technical skills and engineering concepts on 3 simulation-based projects, assisting the department in Bentley’s goal of accelerating through the Product Emergency Process phases of vehicle development, but also significantly reduce physical usage. Not only have I been able to interact with a diverse range of people within the company, but through supplier engagement and meetings with stakeholders including Dynisma, ANSYS and IPG Automotive, I’ve been able to get an insight into the technological advancements within the automotive world.