Portugal leads half of the digital projects for the MAN division of the Volkswagen Group. Currently, the MAN Digital Hub (MDH) tech unit has 200 workers and intends to reach 250 by 2023
Volkswagen Digital Solutions (VWDS), the Volkswagen Group’s technology hub based in Portugal, owns half of the IT projects developed for the truck and public transport brand MAN Truck & Bus.
Through the MAN Digital Hub (MDH) tech unit, the Portuguese company VWDS is responsible for projects in the area of IT and digital innovation and is already considered a “second location” for the MAN brand. Volkswagen Digital Solutions is divided into three tech units in Portugal – Core Operations + Development (CODE), MAN Digital Hub (MDH) and Software Development Center:Lisbon (SDC). The MAN Digital Hub (MDH), which currently has the largest number of people, aims to build digital products for the areas of logistics, transport and commercial vehicles, including the design and development of technological solutions and digital services focused on on the user for the various business areas of MAN Truck & Bus (a brand belonging to the Volkswagen Group).
With around half of MAN’s digital projects being made in Portugal by VWDS, MDH is already considered a second location for the parent brand in Germany. Currently, the MDH tech unit has 200 workers and intends to reach 250 in 2023. Today, they already make up half of the workforce at VWDS, which has around 400 workers.
The Volkswagen Digital Solutions technology hub, created in Portugal in 2018, intends to expand the team to 500 workers by the end of 2023 – when initially the maximum objective was to reach 450 jobs -, with 50 of the new positions being for tech unit MAN Digital Hub, which in the future wants to bring more projects focused on mobility innovation to Portugal.
How projects born in Portugal are developed
MAN’s digital projects continue on both sides, and at VWDS, in Portugal, they start with development and implementation, and move on to Germany with the promise of support and continuity. “All 19 projects that we saw being born at MDH continue to be developed by us.
MAN proposes projects to us because it knows that we have a living organism of technological talent, here at VWDS, capable of responding to the most diverse needs in the field of IT and innovation”, says Albertina Soares, Engineering Manager who is in charge of two MDH teams.
“When it was decided to create the MAN Digital Hub in Lisbon, we agreed that although we were working in a different location, we would work as one team. This mindset allowed MDH to grow, becoming a benchmark and second location, and quickly put the MAN brand on the digitalization map,” says Andre Wehner, CIO of MAN Truck & Bus. Most of the projects focus on the support and development of digital and innovative solutions for the German brand’s trucks and trucks.
For example, technological solutions such as MAN NOW (software and marketplace for truck fleets to update functionality on the fly) can be found in vehicles anywhere in the world.