Le platformingto win in competitiveness

What is platforming?Platforming is a design principle coming from the automotive industry, based on delayed differentiation.

Thus, the big automotive groups such as VW or PSA, manufacture cars using the same technical platform, but distribute them under different brands (VW, Skoda, Peugeot, Citroën…).

This trend is far from being outdated in the automotive (Volkswagen AG company will launch this year, in the entire world the modular platform MQB for Audi, Seat, Skoda, and Volkswagen brands) and it grows more and more in other industrial sectors.

The last two collaborations of Inter Action Consultants with the SEB Group had the following goals:

12 To redesign the steam generators architecture in order to improve

their industrial flexibility.

Pont-Evêque plant is now able to deliver to its distributors and in less than 3 months, an evolution of design, colors and performance , , in comparison to 8 to 9 months at the beginning of the collaboration with IAC.

To define a robust and competitive industrial platform for the mid segment irons of the 3 brands of the group: Rowenta, Calor and Tefal.

IAC also helped the Pont-Evêque (France) and Erbach (Germany) teams in making all the possible synergies between their 2 industrial plants, their own design history and their combined performance.

At the end of the project, the magazine “L’usine nouvelle” awarded Factory of the Year the CALOR -Groupe SEB- Pont-Evêque, project leadingplant.

Reactivity to win new marketsPlatforming is a significant asset in this ultra-competitive market.It offers Groupe SEB the opportunity to catch one-shot or seasonal contracts while ensuring the availability of ultra-competitive products, with the required design (Mothers’ day version, Christmas, L’Oreal…). All of this, of course, in a very short delay, and at (virtually) any location on

the globe. Indeed, customization is carried out as a last step, based on a technical core already available. In doing so, the development efforts are considerably reduced. For the irons market, this can represent a potential 10% increase in turnover.

A modular platform system, gives the benefit of a great range in aesthetic designs while keeping the same level of performance, thus satisfying a larger spectrum of

customers, and addressing more easily several intercontinental markets.

Freedom in the design

A better forecast for the partners and suppliersYour standard parts suppliers will also be pleased to receive higher purchase orders volume forecasts. This will allow you to

increase your negotiation power thanks to higher purchase volumes.

Which input data?

3 IAC consultants for a 6 months support

Roles to involve in the project:

• Marketing• R&D• Purchasing• Industrialisation

…and for which results?

Time to market decreased by 20%

A 10% to 20% turnover growth

Investments reduced by 40%

Several hundreds of thousands of euros no longer frozen

The technical architecture of a modular design product enables to offer a great diversity of designs / colors / performance to your customers, and thus catching

new ones. The diversity created is design-controlled, leading to an automatic cost reduction of about 5%.

A more diversified and controlled offer

Stock optimizationThe good platform definition also brings a opportunity for inventory optimization of low diversity components, the ones that are part of the technical base (the famous platform). Indeed, as the supply chain is then common to several production ranges, it becomes simpler, whereas the stock value is decreased. For instance, with the irons, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of euros that are no longer blocked.

The mutualisation of technical bricks on several lines of products, even several brands, enables to reduce the required investments, by reducing their number and their amounts, amortizing them on a larger range of products. The components are more often re-used, standardized, and the sub-assemblies and processes too.For instance, the synergy defined by IAC for the Pont-Evêque / Erbach project enables to reduce by 40% the amount of investments over the 3 brands, compared to a duplication of the expenses, respectively on each industrial plant.

Reduced investments

• Identifyingthe products or lines of products for which platforming is a high stake of your competitiveness challenges.

• Animating, leading and structuring your projects with your teams to define the concepts / modular architecture which gives the greatest industrial flexibility to your products.

• Supporting you in implementing these platforms and this diversity, while controlling the direct costs of your products. Building on more than 35 years of experience in this field, IAC is the guarantor of your economic competitiveness.

Inter Action Consultants approach consists in :

The trend to highly customized products is speeding up, the manufacturing processes must evolve to answer, ever faster, to the need of the customers.

Thanks to its activity in all industrial sectors, its constant technology watch, IAC is able to

offer customizable manufacturing solutions (including additive manufacturing…). Indeed, its network of thousands of partners in various technologies makes IAC the best ally to identify the optimal solution to manufacture your products.

And tomorrow?

NICOLAS HUYGEVELDEManager nicolas.huygevelde@iac.fr

For more than 10 years, Nicolas has worked on cost-reduction projects for new or existing products in a wide variety of industrial sectors. In particular he steered numerous platforming projects in the household appliances sector.

Associated with a configurator, these platforms are a considerable and differentiating asset for the sales forces. It enables them to adjust the possible configurations, in-situ, in front of their clients, and to communicate instantly on their lead times and the corresponding prices. They

can also efficiently and immediately reply to the variety of the needs according to the market. The weight of the industrial complexity no longer exists, and you can immediately tackle most of the national and international markets.

Make sales easier

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