Going Your Own Way and Creating Value
FutureStarter Preet Gill did not plan on having a career in the automotive industry. However, he now works for ZF in Detroit as the Head of Sustainability and Digitalization in the Electronics and ADAS Division, and he has never felt restricted or confined to certain sectors.
What’s important to him is creating solutions that are valuable. He is therefore especially proud of one of ZF’s latest developments, which he and his team contributed to: ZF Annotate launched in June 2024. The system can significantly speed up the validation process of complex ADAS and AD systems.
He could have chosen the straightforward path. If it had been up to his family, Preet would have joined their well-established business in India in the late nineties. But the then twenty-something could not see himself doing what his parents did for a living. “The big question for me was whether I wanted to chart my own career path or become part of the family business,” he recalls. After completing his bachelor’s degree, he opted for a radical step and applied for a scholarship at an American university. “I was determined to do something novel with technology,” he explains. “And it felt liberating to be starting out in a new place.” In early 2002, he began studying mechanical engineering, specializing in design and manufacturing, at the University of Michigan.
Preet Gill, Head of Sustainability and Digitalization at Electronics and ADAS Division
First Projects with Machine Vision
His first big project at the university, an imaging process to monitor epilepsy patients at the university hospital, has surprising parallels to his current professional specialization more than twenty years later. In a nutshell, he says: “The goal was to monitor epilepsy patients with cameras and develop software that would recognize typical indications of a seizure in order to trigger an alert to the nursing staff. Before that, nurses had to be assigned either to frequently check on these patients or even to monitor them constantly. This led to high personnel costs for the hospital.”
ZF Annotate has a similar purpose. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) must recognize and evaluate the vehicle’s surroundings and situation with maximum reliability. “The sensors and computers need to be able to distinguish a cyclist from a mailbox and a traffic light from a tree. Ultimately, the system must generate an accurate representation of its surroundings,” says Preet. In the development and validation process of such systems, the collected sensor information – reference data – must be annotated quickly and efficiently to generate “ground truth”. However, the annotation of objects has so far largely been done manually. As Preet has learned from experience: “This is a tedious and error-prone task. It is also very expensive for the developers of ADAS systems.”
Important for the FutureStarter: developing solutions that create added value.
ZF Annotate: Accelerating the Validation Process
This is where ZF Annotate comes in: This cloud-based service accelerates the validation process of vehicle manufacturers’ sensor technology in ADAS. The underlying system uses artificial intelligence algorithms to efficiently annotate video data and, in this way, can make the process up to ten times faster. Preet is sure: “Annotate is a game changer for the validation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. I am proud to work on ADAS solutions that help increase road safety and driving comfort, and especially proud that ZF Annotate is accelerating the development and validation of these functions,” he says.
The parallels between recognizing an epileptic seizure and the “ground truth” through automated data processing are striking. Big Data has also played a special role for Preet throughout the twenty years between his university project and his contribution to ZF Annotate. In his first job, he used detailed data to analyze a car manufacturer’s warranty costs and was able to identify major drivers. “Between 2003 and 2008, current concepts of data science had started to take shape. I was part of a small team that started to leverage warranty data to generate value,” he recalls. “The results were impressive. Through targeted measures, we improved quality metrics to the point where warranty costs were reduced by 3.5 million dollars – while saving 5 million dollars in material costs.”
Preet Gill has been working for ZF since 2022.
Balancing the Car Industry and Academic Pursuits
During his time with the car manufacturer, Preet felt a growing interest in pursuing business studies in order to link his engineering knowledge more closely with strategic decisions. Once again, he set out on a unique and less traveled path. He enrolled at Eastern Michigan University and completed a PhD in Technology with a concentration in Engineering Management in 2013 while working full time at a Tier-1 automotive parts supplier. His research pursuits ranged from employee engagement to healthcare management. This broad knowledge base spurred him into exploring new business value propositions at his employer. Between 2013 and 2021, he led and added value to several innovative projects including natural gas propulsion, AI in manufacturing, sustainable energy solutions, and automated logistics systems. He continues to foster his relationship with academia by offering and holding lectures and serving as an advisor in various schools at the University of Michigan.
Digitalization and Sustainability
Preet has been with ZF since 2022 and is working in the Electronics and ADAS Division. Currently, he is responsible for sustainability and digitalization. He develops strategies and co-creates measures for achieving the ambitious ZF targets. An important project is the “Early Sustainability Indicator”, a new tool that will allow engineers to calculate and forecast the carbon footprint of a design during the development stage of electronics components. “The weight of a component is typically used to calculate its carbon footprint. This approach is not conducive for electronics. Our team has developed an effective method of doing this complex calculation that can be easily visualized in a simple digital tool.”
Preet Gill is proud of his team which is working continuously on innovate digital and sustainable solutions.
Given his commitment to digital transformation and sustainability, Preet also feels like a FutureStarter. “Being able to drive and deploy ESG and AI strategies effectively is very important to me,” he says. “I can create value every day. For me, it is a continuation of a theme that has always been with me. Perhaps this is a motivating factor for migrants everywhere: finding an ideal place for yourself where you can create value. I have found that place at ZF.”
