Managing a project with an Asian supplier
Goal
The goal was to assist an industrial company in Malaysia in becoming an important supplier for the international Tier 1s.
SNECI’s Role
SNECI brought its supplier partner Precico all of the support it required to enter the automotive market. "We have worked with them for eight years," says SNECI Business Development Director Herve Champion. Before SNECI arrived, Precico was a manufacturing subcontractor mainly in office material and telephones. Very quickly, thanks to his experience in the automotive sector at Fiat, Magneti Marelli and Valeo, Herve Champion identified Precico's potential as an automotive supplier. "After analysis, we prepared a market product plan with Precico's top management to be able to approach Valeo."
On an industrial level, SNECI assisted its partner by sending out one of its engineers to Malaysia to bring support in project advancement and to allow its competencies in assembling decorative parts with electronics to be recognized.
Since then, Precico's activity is 60% in the automotive industry. As SNECI teams explain it, "Valeo is their most important client in the world since they supply them in Europe, Asia, Tunisia and Mexico, which allowed us then to supply BMW and Continental. We are now in advanced negotations with other suppliers." SNECI also brought them another major customer in the industrial field, Neopost.
SNECI’s Added Value
SNECI allowed Precico to understand the stakes in the auto indusry in industrial and quality terms. Customers initially used Precico for simple parts and gradually awarded them projects for complete modules. After nomination, SNECI played its role as a project coordinator. "This has enabled us to manage more than 150 projects for sub-assemblies on Peugeot, Renault, Volkswagen, Mercedes or BMW cars," admits Jian Zhen, SNECI's Chinese Project Manager. This is an important success for SNECI who has its clients' satisfaction and solidifying those relations over the long-term as its main objectives.
Now the projects on which Precico is retained involve complete modules with electronics assembly, not just parts. To reach this objective, SNECI added to its team a Chinese Project Quality Manager, Supply Chain experts to manage flows between Asia and Europe and a Resident Engineer in the Czech Republic, who is managed by SNECI's office in Central Europe. This shows that the team we put in place specifically to answer a particular need will be able to call on all the expertise of our global network useful for its missions. As such, one of our next challenges is to develop Precico in China with the support of our Shanghai office.
Winning a new client through SNECI’s coaching
The Goal
A well-known Spanish supplier wanted to understand the stakes and objectives of an European OEM and develop its presence there.
SNECI’s Role
SNECI allowed this supplier to better understand PSA’s demands and methodology. “Everything happened in two phases,” says Sebastien Marek, the SNECI engineer who piloted the project. First, it was a question of raising the plant quality level to the OEM's standards. Next, SNECI aided the President who was also the owner in understanding the OEM's expectations and the investments he had to do on his site to be a supplier over the long-term with this client. Then we exposed the OEM's methodologies so they could be easily implemented, and we put an action plan in place with monthly project reviews to ensure that the milestones would be met. Market remarks, "We assisted this supplier in understanding the differences in terms of project management between Daimler, John Deere and PSA."
With SNECI’s assistance, this Spanish supplier passed the OEM's evaluation audit and entered the panel of qualified suppliers to be consulted on future projects. The supplier has since won a first contract. SNECI put together the different quality files and guaranteed the verification of all documents while ensuring correct translation.
"When the method engineers from the OEM plant came to visit the industrial site in Madrid, they congratulated them," says Marek. "There was been no incident during series production, and quality levels are excellent at 2 or 3 ppm."
SNECI’s Added Value
By assisting this supplier in better understanding the requirements of a new client, SNECI was an effective interface between the two companies in speeding up and improving the customer-supplier relationship. Putting the proper methodology into place was the key to this win-win relationship.
Developing a Chinese supplier on the European market
The Goal
SNECI wanted its Chinese supplier partner Zhongjun, identified by PSA Shanghai as a potential supplier, to forge a close and lasting relationship with the automaker, but also to develop themselves in Europe.
SNECI’s Role
The automaker wanted to use SNECI’s expertise to find a particular solution for a project underway. “SNECI understands and knows its clients well,” says Jian Zheng, the Project Director for SNECI. On Zhongjun’s side, SNECI’s role as the European office of this Chinese supplier who had started exporting was even more crucial, as succeeding in this was compulsory for Zhongjun to succeed in its long-term growth. One should not forget the short-term objective: providing the interface to satisfy the client's request.
To meet PSA’s requirements on this project, SNECI analysed what PSA needed and implemented a plan for quality support and project management support. This required a competent team who understood the cultural differences. We thus named a manager knowing PSA methodologies of supplier sourcing and a Chinese Project Manager whose role was to explain the requests of the Chinese supplier.
Today, SNECI monitors the deliveries in Sochaux from a quality standpoint and is in the process of implementing an antenna in Russia to monitor the deliveries made at PSA in Kaluga.
Thanks to this competent two-person team, new nominations on projects were won, and SNECI continues to succeed in its role as project coordinator with PSA as well as with European suppliers.
SNECI’s Added Value
SNECI was able to demonstrate its value through its deep knowledge of the requirements of the automobile industry and particularly PSA’s methodologies. Moreover, SNECI’s Project Manager is of Chinese origin, which greatly facilitated the exchanges. The international nature of SNECI’s teams is a valuable asset and allows it to match the best employee with each project, leading to efficient and durable relationships. “We understand what PSA is looking for, and we frequently go to the ADN technical center in Velizy to present the products to the automaker’s teams,” says a SNECI Project Manager. "Once the Chinese Technical Manager wanted to come but he never managed to get his visa. We lead the whole project review without any difficulty."
Thanks to its multicultural expertise and knowledge of the automobile industry, SNECI allowed PSA to quickly develop a good Chinese supplier it had identified to answer its requirements.
"The next objective is to be retained by German suppliers with whom we are in very advanced discussions," says Cyril Hammer, SNECI Business Development Manager.
Assisting an OEM new to the region in coaching its local suppliers
The Goal
As PSA Peugeot Citroen started operating its new production plant in Trnava, Slovakia in 2006, it looked for local suppliers, either asking its traditional suppliers to localize their production in Central Europe, particularly Slovakia, or by selecting new local suppliers. “Even in large Tier 1 organizations, local teams did not know the standards and methodologies and were not trained to international levels of quality and industrialisation, since these teams were all new,” recalls Michal Matusek, Manager of SNECI Central & Eastern Europe.
Thanks to its office in Central Europe based in Slovakia, SNECI assists local companies (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Russia) to understand methodologies of the automotive industry. The goal is also to bring them to an international industrial and quality level.
SNECI’s Role
SNECI trained suppliers in understanding the standards and methodologies of the automobile industry and particularly the French automakers and Tier 1s. The French have specific demands and procedures that are very different from those that the Central European suppliers may already know.
In Russia, for example, SNECI trained suppliers for Magna in Project Management and Supply Chain. Little by little, aided by word of mouth, SNECI achieved a certain reputation throughout the region. For Continental, training sessions were held at six different sites in Central Europe.
Today SNECI proposes services to over 80 suppliers in Central & Eastern Europe.
SNECI’s Added Value
Knowing the local industrial fabric allowed SNECI to locally work with PSA to establish supply lines for its Trnava plant, but also with other suppliers. SNECI’s local presence played a major role. “We are the only company able to offer these trainings in the regional languages on top of English, German or French,” says Matusek. “We also do supplier coaching and supplier development here: many companies are interested in working with us since they know we will be able to provide local support over the long term.”
In addition to access to these focused training sessions, companies in the region know that they can turn to SNECI for assistance in the industrial, logistical or commercial field. “This makes us very unique,” concludes Matusek. “Thanks to different offices worldwide, including in Slovakia, SNECI is able to work closely with these customers and bring them to international levels of quality and industrialisation.”
