The automotive industry is in the midst of a sweeping transformation. Electrification, autonomous driving, and software-defined vehicle architectures are now mainstream, forcing engineering teams to meet uncompromising safety, performance, and compliance targets. To cope, OEMs and suppliers are scaling Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), real-time simulation, and digital-twin validation across every stage of development.
These advanced workflows require high-performance engineering software licenses, including MATLAB/Simulink, Ansys, CATIA, Siemens NX, and Teamcenter, deployed seamlessly across globally distributed design, manufacturing, and R&D sites. As software spend accelerates, however, so does the complexity of managing these licenses with accuracy and speed.
Engineering Software License Mismanagement: A Technical and Operational Risk
When engineering software licenses are governed by static estimates instead of live usage data, they become an operational liability. Typical symptoms include:
- excess entitlements that sit unused, inflating operating costs,
- license contention and denials that stall simulation runs or design iterations,
- Insufficient traceability, jeopardizing compliance with ISO 26262, ASPICE, and cybersecurity standards, and
- fragmented visibility across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid license servers.
In a quality-critical sector such as the automotive industry, these inefficiencies directly erode development velocity, validation integrity, and audit readiness, especially where functional safety and security are non-negotiable.
Engineering License Optimization as a Quality Enabler
Open iT delivers strategic value across the automotive manufacturing value chain—from global OEMs to Tier 1 suppliers and emerging innovators—by enabling data-driven license optimization that strengthens engineering discipline and drives standardization at scale. Our solutions are tailored for the automotive industry’s most widely used engineering applications, including Ansys, Autodesk, MathWorks, and SAP, with robust support for leading simulation, design, and PLM solutions.
Unlike traditional IT asset management, engineering software license management focuses on continuous availability, process predictability, and telemetry-driven decisions. Open iT provides deep instrumentation across engineering environments, capturing:
- feature-level usage of high-value engineering tools,
- session durations, idle time, and concurrency peaks,
- resource demand mapped to specific teams, products, or vehicle programs,
- multi-license manager support for Siemens, Dassault, MathWorks, Altair, Autodesk, and others.
This intelligence empowers automotive manufacturing organizations to engineer with consistency and control—key pillars of a mature quality culture.
Key Technical Outcomes Enabled by Open iT
Simulation Access Reliability
Tools like ANSYS Mechanical or Simulink Real-Time are foundational for functional safety validation, energy optimization, and embedded control testing. Open iT ensures engineers have access when needed by proactively identifying contention risks, enabling license pooling, and enforcing usage policies.
Standardization Across Programs
License data reveals which tool versions are in use, enabling IT to standardize configurations across business units and supplier tiers. The result is smoother hand-offs, integrated validation loops, and harmonized workflows.
Data-Driven Resource Planning
Procurement and R&D IT teams can eliminate guesswork using Open iT’s data analytics. Forecasting tools support entitlement planning aligned with vehicle program phases, headcount ramp-ups, and cloud migration strategies.
Traceability for Quality and Compliance
With Open iT, session is time-stamped and tagged, creating an audit trail that supports ISO/IEC 15504, ISO 21434, and UNECE WP.29 documentation.
Strategic Value Across the Organization
Engineering software license optimization directly impacts enterprise performance by aligning IT resources with business objectives.
For Engineering and IT:
- Concurrent usage modeling to eliminate license shortages during peak validation cycles.
- Hybrid deployment monitoring across on-prem, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and SaaS-based toolchains.
- Custom alerting and automation for session tracking, idle reclaim, or license denial triggers.
For Procurement:
- Accurate software license utilization reports to support renewal negotiations.
- Spend benchmarks highlight over-licensed departments and redundant vendors.
- Vendor-neutral usage dashboards to avoid lock-in and identify license redundancy.
For Executive Leadership:
- 10–30% annualized savings on engineering software.
- Lower program delivery risk through uninterrupted access to critical tools.
- Stronger governance supporting cybersecurity, ESG, and regulatory goals tied to product lifecycle transparency.
Pushing for Quality-Driven Engineering
As software complexity and quality expectations intensify, license optimization moves from back-office task to strategic imperative. Open iT ensures engineers have the right solutions, at the right moment, for the right purpose, protecting both program execution and the culture of quality that sustains it.
Contact Open iT to learn how license optimization can accelerate your vehicle development, cut engineering risk, and reinforce quality across the automotive manufacturing lifecycle.
