AI start-up One Data develops new platform against chip shortage with Harman

Berlin, Dusseldorf The automotive industry has been suffering from the chip crisis for more than two years. The situation in the industry is improving only slowly. The US market research company Autoforecast Solutions assumes that in 2023 almost three million vehicles will not be able to be built worldwide due to the lack of chips. There are now high hopes for a new database software developed by the German start-up One Data based in Passau, Bavaria.

The young company has developed an IT platform in cooperation with the Samsung-owned automotive supplier Harman, on which automotive suppliers can anonymously enter their inventories and trade with each other.

The experience that the start-up had already gained with a platform for the manufacturer Biontech flowed into the chip platform. While at the time it was about enabling more efficient procurement of vaccine components, the focus of the new platform called “Wavetrade” is on more efficient distribution of semiconductors.

According to their own statements, Harman and One Data are in exchange with 14 suppliers. The biggest names in the industry will be there: Continental, Marelli, Vitesco and Aptiv. “We are currently in discussions with car manufacturers about participating in Wavetrade,” says Stefan Roskos, Managing Director of One Data.

The interest from suppliers comes as no surprise to Thomas Frei, supply chain manager at Harman. The industry has been suffering from a semiconductor shortage since the end of 2020. “The semiconductor supply chains were disrupted around the globe. A situation that I have never experienced in my 25 years in the automotive industry,” he says.

Initially, the suppliers panicked and ordered more chips from all sorts of semiconductor manufacturers in order to build up inventories. This response from suppliers has resulted in unequally distributed inventories. “The assumption made sense that if a certain component was no longer available from a supplier, there was still a high probability that this component would be in stock at another company,” says Frei.

Supplier managers exchanged information about inventories via WhatsApp

A barter was obvious, but would have been difficult to implement without the appropriate IT system. In critical moments of the chip shortage, supplier managers tried to exchange semiconductors with each other via their own WhatsApp groups.

In the early summer of last year, Harman therefore sought contact with One Data. According to Roskos, suppliers would know which semiconductors they are missing. “But the special thing about the platform is that the participating suppliers are automatically shown which semiconductors can be handed over.”

The database from Harman and One Data automates the WhatsApp groups and should allow an exchange of significantly larger amounts at shorter intervals.

>> Also read: Hope for the automotive industry – Infineon strengthens European chip production

A company that needs a specific component at short notice for a specific period of time, for example 14 days, can submit a request on the platform. If the component is available, the companies that make it available automatically receive a request.

If a company accepts the request, an exchange is established between the two parties. “After that, the transaction takes place bilaterally between the platform participants or a distributor,” says Roskos.

The participating suppliers pay a monthly fee for the service. One Data also charges a transaction fee for each barter transaction that is made. The Federal Cartel Office gave the platform the green light at the end of last year.

We are certainly a thorn in the side of chip brokers. Stefan Roskos, Managing Director of One Data

Frei promises that the platform cannot heal the industry’s chip woes, but it can alleviate them through more efficient distribution. “According to our calculations, a car manufacturer could produce significantly more vehicles if they used our database,” he says. However, Frei does not give specific figures.

In addition to more efficient chip distribution, the auto industry is likely to pursue the goal of breaking through the market power of so-called chip brokers. These are intermediaries who buy up and store chip contingents.

In critical supply situations, suppliers had ordered semiconductors from such brokers, sometimes paying 200 times the usual price for semiconductors. One-Data managing director Roskos is certain that the platform is perceived as a threat by the middlemen. “We’re certainly a thorn in the side of chip brokers,” he says.

More: Car chips will remain scarce for years – the car manufacturers are partly to blame

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