Abstract
Un rapport descriptif et analytique du supply chain management chez Renault.
Extract
[...] These boards provide data which allow employees to provide the required amount of components in the assembling chain: not too many components, but enough to secure a decent in-stock in the chain. Assembling area The assembling area is probably the most impressive place of the Renault site. The area contains a huge U chain. The painted skeleton arrives at the beginning of the chain, and at the end, it's a finished car which goes out of the plant (this operation requires 14 hours). [...]
[...] Finally, cars are stocked in a huge parking. And we stopped the visit at this point. III) Analysis using taught concepts and techniques First of all, we were all very surprised to see that the Kanban system was not adopted by Renault in their assembly chain. Bruno Estienne explained us that meeting a customer demand when you sometimes have huge production demand differences (10 vehicles one day the next day), is very complicated, maybe even impossible with the Kanban system. [...]
[...] We needed our passports in order to receive, a blouse and a badge and glasses, elements which are essential to visit the factory. Once we were on the site, he briefed us about the schedule of the visit. Basically, the supply chain is divided into six areas: - Stamping area - Metal Sheet area - Painting area - Mounting area - Logistic area He told us that we would visit the most interesting areas: stamping area, metal sheet area, logistic area and finally, mounting area. [...]
[...] Thanks to Bruno Estienne, Antoine's family friend, we had the opportunity to visit and discover the Renault factory of Douai. According to several example we saw in class based on the car industry, we decided to grab this opportunity because we were sure it would fit with the content of the course and that we couldn't easily find a better way to understand properly how a big supply chain works and how JIT is managed. We drove from Lille to Cuincy, and met Bruno Estienne on Monday 22nd of November for a 2 hour tour of the factory followed by a 2 hour interview. [...]
[...] Once, the Renault site had a problem on its elevator for 72hours, which caused huge unacceptable delays. In order to satisfy customer demand, once, cars had to be transported from the site to the retail store by helicopter (about 2000? per car just for the trip), so we can easily imagine how expensive some breakdowns can be. Rearranging the whole production and assembly line in order to make it on one level and especially in a straight line (not in a U-shape which can be disturbing sometimes when you have to deliver parts in the right place) will cost a huge amount of money on short term, but is probably good advice on the long term, as a lot of problems would be avoided or solved faster, and the transportation system would be reorganized in a better and faster way as well. [...]
