Achieving Commercial Strength Through Part Standardisation

Situation
Faurecia relies on Optimas for a wide range of high-quality fasteners and C-Class parts. When a market leader like Faurecia continually expands its product lines, there is a risk for SKU proliferation to occur with these low-cost, high-volume parts. Having too many parts can lead to increased costs and redundant and excess inventory. Optimas recognized that Faurecia could create a more efficient supply chain and improve its speed to market with a standardized global part catalog.

Solution
Optimas engineering experts worked with Faurecia to learn precisely how to assemble its products and design its parts. Optimas also brought in key suppliers to help in this collaborative effort, which entailed:

• Developing a global catalog of standard fastener parts for use across multiple programs
• Identifying and eliminating obsolete and duplicate parts
• Leveraging existing parts to meet new engineering requirements
• And thanks to a close partnership between engineering teams and a strong supplier network, Optimas can quickly design and source Faurecia’s custom parts.

Results
By implementing global standards across 111 plants in 22 countries, Faurecia boosted its quality, operational efficiency and financial performance:

• Lowered total cost of ownership with 79% fewer parts, better economies of scale on parts and reduced inventory of pre- and after-market parts
• Reduced supply chain risk with fewer suppliers and less managed inventory
• Launch new products faster, as engineers can start with a quality-approved standard product list that can be accessed quickly anywhere in the world

Optimas deploys over 200 million global standard parts to Faurecia plants all over the world in local time zones and currency. Due to the program’s success, Faurecia is rolling out further process optimizations. “We started this journey with Optimas in our automotive Interior Systems division,” says Rainer Schulze, Global Commodity Director Metal & Mechatronics at Faurecia, “and have since expanded this effort to our Seating and Clean Mobility business units.” Relying on Optimas’ global strength and engineering know-how, Faurecia is poised to operate with increased innovation and commercial success—and continue improving its world-class product.