Early this year, DVN set to work on a global study to better know the impact of a changing automotive industry on the exterior lighing and then identify the success factors for the next decade. It's not an idle question and the answers aren't obvious from past practice; the automotive industry's longtime hardware basis is rapidly shifting towards software and artificial intelligence, and Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn says—probably correctly—that the industry will change more in the next five years than in the previous twenty.
So at DVN we're hard at work on a blue-ribbon study to provide strategic guidance to practitioners and decisionmakers. The effort is being led by 6 lighting experts:
- Leo Metzemaekers worked 29 years at Philips (including 2 years at Lumileds), of which 19 years in Automotive (Lighting and Optical Storage) and 10 years in Consumer Electronics. He held international positions in Development, Marketing & Sales and Strategy & Business Development. Since October 2016 he works as an independent advisor in automotive sales and marketing, strategy and business development.
- Ralf Schaefer worked more than 34 years for Philips Lighting, 22 of them at Philips Automotive Lighting. He held different positions in research, development, product marketing, and business management until his retirement four years ago. Since then he keeps himself busy as partner and advisor to the automotive lighting community.
- Jean-Paul Ravier worked more than 41 years at Valeo, including 29 years at Valeo Lighting. He's held different positions in R&D, Projects, and Innovation management, and retired in 2013. Now he holds the ELS (Embedded Lighting Systems) chair for advanced master and research in Lighting at the Institut d'Optique graduate school and ESTACA.
- Jean-Paul Charret After graduating in Electronics from Grenoble University in France, Jean-Paul Charret started his career as an R&D Engineer in Medical imaging, first with Thomson Medical then with General Electric Medical systems, heading the vascular imaging department. He joined Valeo Lighting Systems in 1995 to supervise the development of new technologies, and then was from 2000 at the head of the R&D at Valeo Sylvania in Seymour, Indiana. From 2006 to 2012 was is the R&D director of Valeo Lighting Systems at Bobigny, France.
- Daniel Stern, DVN's Chief Editor based in Vancouver, Canada and Seattle, USA, is an active member of the SAE Lighting Systems Group and an appointed member of the US transportation Research Board Visibility Committee, which steers North America research on matters related to automotive conspicuity, lighting performance and regulation. He attends and participates in the world's automotive lighting technical congresses, and has authored many DVN reports.
- Hector Fratty has made his entire career in vehicle lighting. Until 2006 he was Valeo Lighting Systems' chief of R&D. Then he founded Driving Vision News, the global vehicle lighting and driver assistance industry's journal of record. He presides over the biennial VISION symposium, and he is a member of the ISAL steering committee. This post is only available to Gold members.
