TITELTHEMA
Clear sign of upward movement for Jeep: FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne and Agnelli grandson John Elkann at the factory opening in Brazil. It was not something that President Dilma Rousseff could miss.
TITELTHEMA
The best of all production worlds has been assembled in the GOIANA SHOWCASE FACTORY in Brazil. A quite unusual story unfolded in the run-up to its official opening. The human factor stood at the center of the planning.
F
iat-Chrysler Production Chief Stefan Ketter has been in Brazil for two years, supervising the implementation of the “largest project in Fiat history” in terms of size and complexity. In 2010, FCA decided that he would spend a few years in the Pernambuco region, at the tip of the northeastern corner of Brazil, and 7,500 kilometers from Italy. The group’s top management had decided to build a new factory there. And this despite the fact that the Italians were already operating one of the largest plants in the world in southern Brazil: the mega-production facility Betim with an annual output of 800,000 vehicles. FCA’s top leadership argued that this was too little for the alliance’s growth plans in the medium term. As Ketter put it, it did not make sense to push capacity in the existing facility of Betim over the threshold of 1 million units.
With the best of FCA’s employees
Bilder: FCA
Trendsetting 2
Automobil Produktion · September 2015
And so began the search for a suitable location. It was the start of an unusual site selection process and ended in the little town of Goiana. It was there that the government made a 12- millionsquare-meter (!) property available to the automaker. FCA, one of the largest automakers in the world, invested 1.3 billion euros there and guaranteed 4,500 new jobs. As a dowry, the OEM promised in-depth localization of 80 percent. After the terms were negotiated, Ketter’s team got started and made history with the first plant for the FCA entity. A history that is so different from the brownfield plants elsewhere in the world. At the end of the story in April 2015, with great fanfare, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Sergio Marchionne and Fiat heir John Elkann pressed the start button to launch the production of the current Jeep Renegade. A happy ending. Mission accomplished. But in this case, the project’s end is just the beginning. At the start of the planning, Ketter brought his top 200 experts from around the world into the project. The group’s goal: The realization of not just “a facto-
ry,” but the “FCA model” factory, a plant that shined with the most advanced and most flexible production technology, and optimally combined human beings and machines. In the process – and here the human factor comes into play – it was also imperative to meet additional criteria such as superb scores for ergonomics, safety and sustainability in manufacturing – okay, what else? Today, the most advanced factory in the FCA empire in fact stands in Goiana, Brazil, and it should retain that title for the foreseeable future, according to Ketter. “In addition, Goiana is serving as a hub for additional developments in other plants,” he said. In this way, Goiana serves as a kind of parent plant for other factories, in China, India and the U.S., for example. “They are naturally watching how the three planned model lines develop here,” Ketter added. Besides the Jeep Renegade, two other models based on the so-called small-wide platform should soon roll off line. In October, production is starting on the stillsecret Jeep pickup, sized between the Fiat Strada and the Toyota Hilux. And in January 2016, they will be joined by a Fiat model. But everything is still strictly confidential.
22,000 Best Practises
To breathe life into the expert group’s noble objective, Goiana Plant Manager Giuseppe Figliuolo has assembled 22,000 best practices from the 177 current FCA plants. Figliuolo is continually working on implementing the latest practices at Goiana as quickly as possible. As a result, the Goiana plant is the blueprint for all future FCA plants. The first “copy” is already standing in Guangzhou, China. Jeeps will also be built there. The joint factory, operated by FCA and Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC), will launch production in early 2016. That’s the reason 40 Chinese have just been trained there. But they don’t have much time. Jeep is planning to build and sell eight competitive SUV models in China in the B- to E-segment in China by 2018. But back to Goiana and the main players. The plant is due to manufacture 250,000 units a year. Automobil Produktion · September 2015
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TITELTHEMA
TITELTHEMA
Denny Monti, B&U Direktor: Produced the most innovative and flexible body-in-white operation in the Fiat Chrysler Group.
Adauto Duarte, HR Director: Developed a system to appeal to new employees and test and evaluate them.
Alfredo Fernandez, Supplier Park Director: Organized linkages among suppliers and with processes in the plant
the employees had never had a regular job, but labored in hard, physical work, often as day laborers on sugar cane plantations. Or as fishermen, handymen or simply housewives. The regular employees in Goiana average 30 years of age. And their joy and pride in the job and in being a “member of the Jeep team” can be clearly felt. Ketter’s team is even surprised at their motivation and readiness to learn – and will likely send the major portion of the expatriates back to their old jobs sooner than planned. But that’s not the only new aspect. The plant’s HR managers have established a closely knit team leader structure to pass knowledge onto the novices and to anchor every process innovation into the manufacturing operation immediately.
That will require the right staff. FCA opened a new chapter that is likely unique in the automotive world. Lacking trained automotive experts for production work, HR Manager Adauto Duarte sent employees with megaphones into the poor neighborhoods of Pernambuco to recruit new hires. People who seemed to be smart, respectful and polite in a spontaneous interview on the roadside were invited to the next steps in the selection process. At the same time, an Internet search was underway for university graduates. At least 10 applications per position were generated with this recipe. Exactly 80 percent of the factory staff is now from locations around the factory. Three-quarters of all the employees had never been in a leadership position. And a portion of
Miriam Silva: Works on the assembly line. For this single mom, the job at Jeep is a life-changing experience.
Every team leader supervises six employees. There are about 250 team leaders in all, and 165 from the plant were allowed to travel to the Jeep factory in Melfi, Italy, and look over the shoulders of their experienced colleagues. By the end of this year, there should be about 9,000 employees (6,368 at the production launch in April). To meet the further need for experts, FCA has established an entire network of measures to teach automotive subjects so it can build up expertise and – a further goal – operate a development center on its own. That is even fixed in the agreement with the Brazilian government. It stipulated that 2 percent of revenue must be invested in “localized R&D” in the medium term.
Source: IHS Automotive
The Jeep brand on track for growth Vehicle Sales: Region
Vehicle Sales: Sales Brand
CY 2014
CY 2015*
CY 2016*
CY 2017*
CY 2018*
CY 2019*
Europe
Jeep
52.474
92.842
98.318
104.224
104.596
103.494
CY 2020* 109.023
Greater China
Jeep
78.782
84.171
181.136
250.171
265.954
243.158
254.302
Japan/Korea
Jeep
11.566
9.817
9.242
8.360
7.227
6.757
7.445
Middle East/Africa
Jeep
19.132
20.938
21.478
22.048
20.607
20.128
23.922
North America
Jeep
787.172
899.359
882.011
966.926
864.989
892.617
870.472
South America
Jeep
20.111
43.139
66.687
69.358
65.798
65.190
69.686
South Asia
Jeep
32.319
31.123
33.467
40.609
61.964
57.490
60.387
Total
1.001.556
1.181.389
1.292.339
1.461.696
1.391.135
1.388.834
1.395.237
The group’s plans foresee sales of about 1.9 million vehicle worldwide by 2018. The HIS forecasts are somewhat more skeptical.
Source: IHS Automotive
Market leader in Brazil – Fiat still in the lead Vehicle Sales: Country
Vehicle Sales: Sales Brand
CY 2014
CY 2015*
CY 2016*
CY 2017*
CY 2018*
CY 2019*
CY 2020*
Rank 2015
Brazil
Fiat
697.898
449.401
431.523
483.102
509.532
525.795
538.165
1
Brazil
Volkswagen
577.172
384.611
363.476
351.412
407.163
431.977
471.449
2
Brazil
Chevrolet
578.673
378.417
316.198
306.719
299.051
327.001
385.843
3
Brazil
Ford
308.560
273.415
260.385
240.200
225.471
244.568
275.901
4
Brazil
Hyundai
236.629
194.901
186.504
197.330
193.950
216.807
230.772
5
The Brazilian market is an important building block in the overall corporate strategy. Here Fiat is even likely to be able to outdistance Volkswagen
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Automobil Produktion · September 2015
Egon Daxbacher is working on the preparations for it. In the nearest large city, Recife, he is setting up what he calls a kind of Brazilian “Silicon Valley.” He is assembling software specialists from throughout the world and has persuaded companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Accenture, Motorola, Hewlett Packard and Samsung to found an academy. The preliminary stages will be launched in two years, at the latest, Daxbacher hopes that the planned R&D center could supplement the triad of Turin, Auburn Hills and Betim and later establish itself as the group’s fourth development center. That would make the location even more attractive to young, motivated employees. A test track will also be completed on the eastern side of the factory property in May 2016. There FCA can certify fuel consumption for all its brands. In addition, a powertrain and a tech center are planned. By 2020, 500 highly qualified engineers are expected to work there. This fall, FCA is launching various engineering programs in concert with several universities and has already established an exchange program with students from the Polytechnic University of Turin. The goal is to have the right job applicants ready to go. With the help of subsidized programs for schools and universities, the major objective of all the FCA initiatives is to train 7,000 students and 700 instructors on automotive subjects and enrich the curricula at 44 schools with key natural sciences. The relative young workforce is working in a highly modern factory layout even by European standards. The core is the Communication Center. There an ample showroom with a welcome desk greets visitors. Behind them, the first break with various customs and taboos is visible: The entire office landscape combined into a kind of factory hall. No employee has his own desk. You sit down wherever you find an open seat. You mostly discuss things while standing or in small conference room units. The advantage: The Communication Center is centrally located and is linked to the four production halls – press shop, body in white, paint shop and assembly line – over extremely short paths. Newcomers and professionals are mixed together in the entire plant. One example is the domain of Nildo Ribeiro, who reigns over well-known things like meisterbocks and tool tables. He is at
Bild: FCA
A fourth group development center?
Young workforce: At the Goiana plant, 80 percent of the staff comes from the Pernambuco region. The average age is 30 years. The motivation and commitment are noticeable here.
home in his field. He worked for Volkswagen and Audi in Germany before Ketter brought him to Fiat. Ribeiro checks and improves the quality of parts and their processing. Parts only go onto the line if he and his team bless them. His credo: “We love problems. But only when they show up here first.” In the plant hall next-door, Paulo and Miguel occupy the Process Center above a kind of miniature factory with 16 sections. New work steps are rehearsed there and checked for their efficiency. Both currently have plenty to do. After all, the next vehicle launch is scheduled for October. The Vehicle Center is one department further. It is a kind of vehicle test department, and Francisco is in charge here. The staff regularly tests vehicles coming off the line. If there is a complaint from a customer, they maintain direct contact with the dealer and sometimes even with the customers themselves, to immediately get to the bottom of phenomena that have never appeared before. Ketter’s troops are especially proud of the body-in-white department. It is ultramodern – even in comparison with Europe – and offers the greatest possible flexibility. Erika is sure that it is most innovative body-in-white operation in the entire group. The 22-year-old is one of three shift managers. Her colleagues José Marcos (22) and Fabio (29) are not much older. The body-in-white area is currently managing to complete 45 vehicles per hour, with support from 577 robots.
Jeep claim: “Make history”
If FCA’s plans bear fruit, the Renegade will become a successful model – worldwide. In the process, the company’s strategists are banking on the positive image of the legendary Willys Jeep, which was built in Brazil during the 1960s. Jeep is using this history to inspire customers in Brazil as a quasi-local brand and as the only true SUV – with the best 4x4 capabilities. And it is working: The first 25,000 orders (as of the end of July) have arrived in Goiana. The waiting period for a Renegade in Brazil is up to three months. Jeep’s global goal: Sales of 1.9 million vehicles a year by 2018. And thus, if the Brazilian market doesn’t bounce back the way the FCA strategists believe it will, exporting from Goiana is not a problem, Ketter said. “We can switch over to ‘export’ at any time.” Bettina Mayer ■
Automobil Produktion · September 2015
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