Innovation leadership
Porsche is the most profitable car manufacturer in the world. Their values and philosophies permeate through everything they do to ensure that they always capture significant returns from innovation leadership. They constantly meet their own high demands and have a definite idea about who they are and how they approach things.
As a result, despite what others may be doing, Porsche actively seek to stretch boundaries and are committed to unrivalled innovation leadership.
First to commercialise ceramic brakes
Through Porsche’s clear strategy to promote breakthrough ideas, Wendelin Wiedeking (CEO) wanted Porsche to be the first to commercialize ceramic brakes for street cars and with the strict deadline of the Carrera GT launch in 2002 – giving his team two years to do what no one else had done so far.
The world’s first ceramic disc brake
Porsche Ceramic Composite Brake (PCCB) – the World’s first commercially available ceramic disc brake with performance only found on Formula 1 cars: incomparable longevity, heat resistance and braking distance, 60% weight reduction, immediate brake contact and no fading.
Porsche beat both BMW and Mercedes who had a half-year head start. They license the ceramic composite disc technology to competing car manufacturers and have even applied the technology to clutches to also improve acceleration – and not only deceleration.
Porsche pushed us to look all over the world for the most relevant technologies.
Porsche pushed us to look all over the world for the most relevant technologies. We scanned the world from Scandinavia to Australia. Most important success factor was to bring the best brains into the Weissach- based ceramic brake team to secure 100% knowledge transfer and constant co-creation with the other team members. We tripled the team size starting with only 10 Porsche engineers. Proactive – sometimes close to premature – patent filing supported aggressive IP capturing from the co-creation process.
Having the openness to invite a manufacturing partner into the team from day one supported acceleration of commercialization.