Motional

Motional is a driverless technology company making self-driving vehicles a safe, reliable, and accessible reality. The Motional team was behind some of the industry’s largest leaps forward, including the first fully-autonomous cross-country drive in the U.S., the launch of the world’s first robotaxi pilot, and operation of the world’s most-established public robotaxi fleet.

Motional is a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group, one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers offering smart mobility solutions, and Aptiv, a global technology leader in advanced safety, electrification, and vehicle connectivity.

Shifting Gears to Google Workplace, and to a Better Approach for Managing Content

After conducting a gap analysis in 2019, Motional leadership realized that the company had massive volumes of quality-related documents (work instructions, SolidWorks files, supplier-related documentation, etc.) residing in numerous disconnected systems. The IT team looked into harmonizing this chaotic information management environment within SharePoint, but quickly learned that the platform did not have the flexibility to be configured in the manner they required.

“When Aptiv become a part of Motional, there was a period of time when we were using existing systems from both companies to manage content,” said Harold Rice, Quality Management System Manager at Motional. “We made the full transition to Google Workspace as part of the assimilation process, and that’s when we began looking at content management platforms that were a part of the Google Workspace ecosystem. We needed a platform that would not replace our existing systems, but augment them.”

AODocs Outpaces Other Rigid and Non-Google Friendly Offerings

Motional took a close look at several of the content services platforms (CSP) and enterprise content management (ECM) solutions evaluated by Gartner, Forrester Research, and other industry analyst firms.

“We needed a platform that would perform optimally in the Google environment. Many of the vendors we spoke to said they could ‘make it work” in Google Workspace, but with AODocs, this was a strength. We found AODocs to be quite flexible and adaptable, and it could integrate seamlessly with our existing systems,” added Rice.

Ensuring Compliance and Smooth Audits While Enforcing Document Control and Security

There are many regulations Motional must adhere to and certifications the company must maintain in order to bring driverless technology to market, and all of them require strict control over all quality documentation and related processes. From requirements related to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and ISO 9001, to the International Automative Task Force (IATF) 16949 standard, the 1,000+ Motional employees with access to AODocs use the platform to manage all of this content. And when preparing for audits, AODocs makes it simple and straightforward to create reports and share content with auditors.

Protecting intellectual property and preventing information breaches is of upmost importance for Motional, and the company is able to enforce strict security controls with AODocs.

“With AODocs, we can define controls at the domain and IT level and set specific permissions for super admins and document control specialists who manage our libraries. We can delineate security controls across of all of these layers.”

Harold Rice,
Quality Management System Manager at Motional

Wursta Instrumental in Successful AODocs Deployment

The selection and deployment of AODocs occurred during the time when Aptiv and a segment within the Hyundai Motor Group merged to become what is now known as Motional. Motional began working with Wursta, an IT services and support company and AODocs partner, to help the company with its Google Workplace implementation and migration away from the MSFT stack.

When Motional made the decision to select AODocs, they asked Wursta to help them quickly deploy the content services platform.

“With the merger taking place, having a reliable implementation partner that understood the complexities of our needs, and that could help us quickly configure AODocs to meet them, was critical. We needed people who understood agility and the depth of requirements. Wursta provided the speed and agility we need to move this forward at the pace we required,” noted Rice.

“The complexity of the Motional use case combined with the transitionary period the company was in made this a very fast-paced and complex project. The ability for all of us to adapt and be flexible was paramount,” said Natalie Sorrells, vice president of services for Wursta. “We were fortunate in that Motional had a vision for what they wanted and they had all of their requirements mapped out when they came to us. In addition, AODocs worked closely with us on setting up workflows and libraries. The cross-team collaboration and communication made the build and iteration process very smooth.”

Wursta trained the Motional team on how to administer the AODocs low-code platform to create their own customized libraries and ad-hoc workflows.

“The leadership of the Wursta team in this project was instrumental in the success of our AODocs deployment,” said Rice.