Renault-Nissan tightens marriage

The Renault-Nissan Alliance has announced it will merge four key business functions from next month, in order to achieve synergies of at least €4.3 billion ($A6.6b) annually by 2016.

The move is the latest step in the 15-year evolution of the French and Japanese car-makers and further tightens their marriage first formed on March 27, 1999.

The world’s fourth largest car-maker by volume says it is already “the longest lasting and most productive cross-cultural collaboration in the auto industry”.

Renault-Nissan’s latest amalgamation follows the integration of several functions, including information technology, logistics, customs and trade, and purchasing.

Effective from April 1, however, the Renault and Nissan brands will merge four key operational areas: engineering, manufacturing and supply chain management, purchasing and human resources.

Newly appointed Alliance Executive Vice Presidents will take charge of increasing the integration of each function, which is expected to have “an immediate positive effect on operational performance”.

“Convergence within these four key business functions will result in an immediate increase in efficiency and leverage our size to achieve competitive economies of scale,” said Renault-Nissan Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn.

“The synergies will then enable us to deliver higher-value vehicles to customers and stay at the leading edge of innovation.”

A new management committee, reporting to Ghosn, will oversee the implementation of the new structure, which follows the launch of convergence study projects in late January.

In addition, Christian Mardrus, Senior Vice President and Managing Director for the Alliance CEO Office and Global Logistics, will become Alliance Executive Vice President for Renault-Nissan BV and the Alliance CEO Office.

In engineering terms, Renault and Nissan will combine Common Module Family engineering, advanced research, powertrain development (including electric vehicles), systems engineering and testing facilities and services.

Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, Alliance Director of Platforms and Parts, is appointed Alliance Executive Vice President, Alliance Technology Development, for the new converged Alliance function.

The new Alliance converged manufacturing function will cover global industrial strategy (including sourcing), production process engineering, production control and supply chain management.  

Shohei Kimura, Nissan Corporate Vice President for Vehicle Production Engineering, is appointed Alliance Executive Vice President, Manufacturing Engineering and Supply Chain Management.

Renault and Nissan integrated some of their purchasing functions more than a decade ago, but say that convergence of major engineering and manufacturing activities will drive greater purchasing synergies and more economies of scale.

Christian Vandenhende, Managing Director of the Renault-Nissan Purchasing Organization, is appointed Alliance Executive Vice President, Alliance Purchasing.

Similarly, the two brands already share human resources functions, but under the new arrangement willl implement common HR processes throughout the Alliance, including the creation of a unified “talent management” policy across the companies’ global operations.

Marie-Francoise Damesin, Renault Executive Vice President for Human Resources, is appointed Alliance Executive Vice President, Alliance Human Resources. In addition, Greg Kelly, Nissan Senior Vice President of the CEO Office and Global Human Resources, is appointed Alliance Executive Vice President, Alliance Talent Management.

The Renault-Nissan alliance has partnerships and joint-ventures with Daimler, AvtoVAZ, Ashok Leyland, Dongfeng and Mitsubishi, which will base its next-generation Lancer on the company’s Common Module Family (CMF) platform.

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