Renault production boss: We can teach China flexibility

Renault is learning from new rivals in terms of software development and reducing the number of parts in its cars – but it can teach Chinese rivals lessons when it comes to manufacturing, according the firm’s quality chief. As part of its new Futuready business strategy, the French firm has been working to cut the development time of its cars to around two years, matching the aggressive Chinese firms that are currently expanding to Europe. But while Chinese firms are able to quickly scale up volume, that is partly because many of their manufacturing plants are dedicated to single vehicles, which are offered with fewer options than European rivals. “We are totally acknowledging that from a technology point of view in the automotive industry, we have a lot to learn from Chinese OEMs,” said Thierry Charvet, Renault Group’s vice-president of strategy. “But industry, and especially vehicle manufacturing, is not an obvious area where we have a lot to learn.” Charvet highlighted the ability of the firm’s factories to handle multiple vehicles at the same time, some of which are built on different platforms. “Look at the flexibility of our [production] line,” he said. “In our Douai plant, we are able to manage four models for the Renault Group – R5, Megane, Scenic and Alpine A390 bodies – and then the Nissan Micra, Mitsubishi Eclipse and potentially another car from Ford. “We’ve had many visitors to our plant, including from our Chinese colleagues. It seemed that they have some something to learn from our flexibility. It’s very similar industry in China, a mix of Japanese and European DNA. It’s very efficient, and you can find all the efficiency in the best plan, but I have not seen any significant breakthroughs.” Charvet acknowledged that featuring multiple cars on a production line, especially with some contract manufacturing efforts for other manufacturers, does bring complexity and extra cost, but said that “for an industrial guy” the benefits outweighed that, particularly because “it’s good to amortise the fixed cost.” While Renault isn’t looking to take lessons from the Chinese in terms of production, Charvet added that what was “interesting” about the country’s car firms was software, “because they manage to have a lot of [processing] power, and they are really able to download software in the car in a much quicker way than we do. Because the software DNA is better, most of them are already in a kind of full- or semi-Software Defined Vehicle architecture.” Another area where the Renault Group is learning from new rivals is in reducing the number of parts in its cars. The goal is for every model launched from now on to use around 30% fewer parts than the model it replaces, which reduces cost and complexity. Charvet insisted that customers would not notice the difference, joking that “we don’t remove doors”. Instead, this has been achieved by, for example redesigning bumpers to have fewer elements, or cutting back on the number of different air conditioning systems offered in various models. “The wake-up call when we disassembled some newcomer cars, especially Tesla,” said Charvet. “ The way the car is designed, you have fewer parts not visible for the customer. So if you look at how compact we’ve made our new platform it needs less wiring, and we have an engine will lots of elements built into it.” Asked how Renault could speed up development time without risking the quality of its vehicles, Charvet joked that “lower the development time, the lower the mistakes engineers make”. But he added that the “real answer is that with Twingo we did not change the validation time: we shortened the time from the concept phase to the first physical object. We did not change one line of a validation book we applied. So the chief of quality, I have exactly the same guarantee on the quality DNA of this car than for any other.” That was achieved through several factors. The first was what Charvet called “robustness of design”, aided by scanning more than 2000 components to develop a “reliability road map” for each: “For steering wheels and knuckles, for examples, we made a loop back of all the issues we had in the past and ensured the new specifications addressed this.” Every new car produced by the firm must also complete between 300,000 and one million kilometres of testing with real customers inside, which Charvet said was particularly helpful at identifying native software issues. “This was really a breakthrough,” said Charvet. Renault not considering megacasting The Renault Group currently has no plans to introduce megacasting production for its future models. Rivals including Tesla, Toyota and Volvo are in the process of introducing the technique, in which large sections of a car’s body – such as an entire rear-end – can be made as a single piece. But Charvet, said that, while foundry stamping expertise within the Renault Group meant that “from a technology point of view there are no obstacles”, the benefits weren’t clear from a “global business model point of view”. He added: “You already have a facility to make your body, but you have to scrap that and invest in a high-pressure press line, which is not so cheap.” He acknowledged there was some weight benefit to cars made with megacast parts, but said that “the equation is too sensitive” for the firm to adopt it.

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Renault production boss: We can teach China flexibility

Simplicity of Chinese factories means there are lessons that legacy brands can teach, says Thierry Charvet

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Renault production boss: We can teach China flexibility

Simplicity of Chinese factories means there are lessons that legacy brands can teach, says Thierry Charvet

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