DaimlerChrysler has announced a radical shake-up of product development processes at its lossmaking Chrysler division in the US.
DaimlerChrysler on Thursday announced a radical shake-up of product development processes at its lossmaking Chrysler division.
The car manufacturer, expected to unveil a sharp fall in second-quarter profits next week, plans to integrate Chrysler’s future product development, manufacturing, procurement and marketing activities.
DaimlerChrysler also intends to set up product innovation teams that will investigate ways of reducing vehicle development time, improving quality and helping Chrysler return to profit. These teams will be supported by product teams, derived from Chrysler’s platform team concept, and component teams to deal with the brand’s supplier base.
Many of the processes are expected to be adopted from Mercedes-Benz and will also be introduced at Mitsubishi Motor (MMC).
“In the Chrysler Group, we will be standardising the structures and processes of our corporate product development function throughout the corporation,” DaimlerChrysler chairman Jürgen Schrempp said.
The initiative is one of the first to emerge from DaimlerChrysler’s new executive committee, which is also considering joint platform development and component sharing across the group’s brands.
Dieter Zetsche, Chrysler’s chief executive, said that a key aim was to “better synergise the combined capabilities of the total group”.
He also said that the company was keen to institutionalise the new system, to prevent too great a dependence on individual executives.
Senior officials said such moves would build on DaimlerChrysler’s turnround package of plant closures and spending cuts, which was unveiled following a first-quarter net loss of E2,26 billion (R15,8 billion).
Analysts have forecast a modest net profit for DaimlerChrysler for the second quarter of this year, but it will remain significantly below the E1,75-billion (R14 billion) net gain for the same period of 2000.
Estimates for Chrysler’s second-quarter losses vary widely from E250-million up to E700-million, and Financial Times reports that the losses will be at the lower end of expectations.
