OLED Technology Flips the Product Development Process on its Head: Working with Tier 2 Suppliers
- Dec 14, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 16, 2024
In the automotive industry, car manufacturers typically work closely with Tier 1 suppliers who create the finalized parts for their vehicles, such as interior seating elements, electronics, and lighting. These suppliers source their raw materials and components from Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers, who typically don’t have the chance to interact directly with the carmaker.
With OLED technology, we flip that organizational structure completely on its head. In this blog, we will explore why it’s important for automakers to work directly with OLED lighting manufacturers like OLEDWorks, and how having trilateral communication between the three parties saves time, money, and headaches during the product creation process.
How OLED Lighting Design is Different
In the standard automotive lighting development process, Tier 1’s source their materials and lighting components from suppliers, and then provide a final product for incorporation into the vehicle. The Tier 1 controls most of the design of the lighting unit by incorporating diffusors, color filters, housing, and other elements that help meet the carmaker’s needs and desires.
But OLED lighting doesn’t require other optical components to change its appearance. Logos, symbols, individually addressable segments, and color options are all integrated within the panel, making the lighting component itself the primary design element. This gives the OLED manufacturer greater control over the design elements of the final lighting.
Benefits of Working with the OLED Manufacturer
With the typical linear process, Tier 2 suppliers like the OLED panel manufacturer have no direct interaction with the carmakers. But with the primary design elements of the lighting found within the OLED panel, it’s crucial for every party to collaborate throughout the entire design process.
By working directly with the OLED manufacturer, carmakers can clearly convey the design elements that they are looking for including color, shape, size, animation capabilities, or logos and branding. The OLED manufacturer can then offer their expertise on what is feasible with regards to the technology, as well as suggest methods of cost-saving through design edits.
Tier 1 suppliers can offer valuable insight into the production process such as integration of the lighting into the overall vehicle system, animation programming, and more, but cannot provide intimate knowledge of OLED panel design. It’s crucial that all parties work together throughout the design process to lead to the highest performing and most cost-effective product.
“It’s a very exciting process, and we’ve found that the most successful and innovative designs are reached when all three parties – the carmaker, Tier 1 lighting supplier, and OLEDWorks – work together from the beginning,” says Jeff Spindler, Director of Research & Development at OLEDWorks. “Early collaboration allows us to expand on each other’s ideas of what is possible with OLED lighting design, while staying bounded by the feasibility of the technology.”
OLEDWorks Joint Development Program
The OLEDWorks Joint Development Program (JDP) offers automotive carmakers and Tier 1 suppliers the opportunity to evaluate and prototype real-world OLED applications with the assistance of OLEDWorks engineers and serves as a launching pad for commercialization of OLED solutions for future SOPs.
John Rubens, Vice President of Customer Success, says “The Joint Development Program is an opportunity for interested manufacturers to meet with our experts and offer a platform to explore OLED technology together. By working with the OLEDWorks team, we can combine our industry knowledge and technical expertise to create the best prototype for the manufacturer to share with their own stakeholders and customers and lead into future commercial production.”
Reach out to our customer service team to learn how the JDP offers:
An accelerated development track with a defined timeline
Access to top OLEDWorks engineers
Ongoing educational support for internal teams
Cost sharing for development of prototype(s)/demonstrator(s)
![[On-Demand Video] Discover the Future of Automotive Lighting with Atala by OLEDWorks](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/712772_4815235f349b46d3aa0f1c10a509492b~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_653,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/712772_4815235f349b46d3aa0f1c10a509492b~mv2.jpg)
This is one of those cases where the tech changes the org chart: if the “look” is intrinsic to the OLED, the people who make it probably have to be in the room early. I’m curious whether OEM styling teams tend to over-specify aesthetic details once they realize how configurable it is (segments, symbols, colors), or if it actually reduces back-and-forth. Randomly, that “baked in” vs “layered on” idea made me think of photo to Ghibli style conversions, where the transformation is the core, not an add-on filter. Either way, earlier alignment sounds like the big win.
I like the idea of cutting out the “telephone game” between OEM and Tier 2, but I’m wondering how you keep requirements from ballooning when everyone can talk directly. Is there usually a single spec owner, or do you lock changes behind formal gates? Side note: the “trilateral communication” framing reminded me of hrefgo where discovery and submission live in the same flow, and it only works if the process is tight. Would love to hear what you do when the Tier 1 has a conflicting packaging constraint.
The point about OLED not needing extra optical components is the part that clicked for me — fewer layers to “fix” downstream. Do you end up validating logos/symbols and segment layouts earlier, like at the same time as electrical and thermal checks? It made me think of a binary translator where the structure is the message, so you catch mistakes at the source instead of after you wrap it in more stuff. Also curious how this affects PPAP-style documentation when the Tier 2 is suddenly in the design loop.
This is one of those cases where the tech changes the org chart: if the “look” is intrinsic to the OLED, the people who make it probably have to be in the room early. I’m curious whether OEM styling teams tend to over-specify aesthetic details once they realize how configurable it is (segments, symbols, colors), or if it actually reduces back-and-forth. Randomly, that “baked in” vs “layered on” idea made me think of photo to Ghibli style conversions, where the transformation is the core, not an add-on filter. Either way, earlier alignment sounds like the big win.
The time/money savings claim rings true, but I’d love to see where the friction moves to — is it more up-front engineering effort, or more complexity in change control once everyone’s collaborating? Especially with lighting, little cosmetic tweaks can turn into big validation cycles. Kind of like how StyleLookLab tries to make “early decisions” explicit so you don’t keep redoing outfits later, the earlier you lock intent the easier it is downstream. Do you have a rule of thumb for when to freeze segment layouts versus leaving them flexible?