MAGNETI MARELLI CASE STUDY

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Magneti Marelli Speeding Towards the Competitive Edge

Magneti Marelli is an Italian subsidiary of Group, which deals with the development and manufacturing of systems, modules and high-technology components for the . Headquartered in Corbetta, the company includes 85 manufacturing plants, 12 research & development centers and 26 application centers in 19 countries. Magneti Marelli has introduced numerous innovations over the years. For example, in 2007 they built the first full-LED headlight in the world intended for mass production (to be fitted on the Audi R8) and in 2008 they worked with and Microsoft Auto to develop an in-dash computer for Ford's work truck division. Up until 2014, however, the company’s research and development was largely an internal effort. When the company partnered with Open Knowledge, which specializes in innovation through collaboration, they developed the LapTime Club.

The LapTime Club is an innovation community built specifically for motorsport engineers and experts, but also for technology and electronics enthusiasts. The objective of the LapTime Club is to stimulate creativity and innovation, which promotes the development of ideas, products and services that are effective for the world of racing.

The team at Magneti Marelli promoted this new online community using the complete digital toolkit: email announcements, news articles in relevant publications, social media campaigns on Facebook and Google+, and more. In fact, as the program matured, they even invited the engagement of academic researchers and students by creating posters and other offline materials to be posted on campuses that directed interested individuals to the community. The team also used the hackathon format to engage the community – inviting interested parties to join a technical competition at a moto show in Bologna where five groups of participants were invited to create and develop a motorsport dashboard using 3D printing and other technologies.

Each month, the innovation team at the Magneti Marelli met to review new ideas and contact the idea authors for more details to further develop the most promising ideas. And in less than a year, the team reported that:

• The Laptime Club had collected more than 90 ideas from all over the world through a crowdsourced effort. • The top 20 ideas became idea finalists that would be evaluated by managers and technical experts. • Two winning ideas would be honored and put into development by Magneti Marelli, including a Google glasses integration and a new method for optimizing a pilot’s decision making during a race. • The research and development cycle had been cut in half. Most new inventions need at least one year in order to be designed and developed and with the new Laptime Club, that cycle had been cut in half. IdeaScale Case Studies 3

“We surveyed numerous tools and IdeaScale combined the most flexible functionality with the highest level of service,” said Alberto Maestri, Project Lead for Magneti Marelli’s Laptime Club, “The program has resulted in an incredible mindset shift that has opened up the process of innovation to make it more collaborative.”

With close to 100 ideas that originated from more than 600 members (85% of which were external to the company), Magneti Marelli plans to continue to invite global collaboration in their Laptime Club, which will drive motorsport innovation into the future.