Schaeffler Group, a leading automotive and industrial supplier unveiled in January 2021 its new revised business strategy – Roadmap 2025, meant to support the ongoing transformation in a future-oriented and targeted manner. The strategy is designed to build upon the company’s strengths and to improve in areas where there is room for growth.
Innovation, agility, and efficiency have been identified by the German manufacturer as three strategic dimensions particularly critical in order for the company to thrive in a forevermore challenging and competitive environment. The new company claim, “We pioneer motion,” expresses Schaeffler’s commitment to continue to shape movement and progress by being a diversified supplier in the automotive and industrial sectors with a global reach. The manufacturer also identified five future trends that are particularly relevant to its business: sustainability & climate change, new mobility & electrified powertrain, autonomous production, data economy & digitalization, and demographic change. In an interview for Automotive Tomorrow, Sorin Poteraș, General Manager Schaeffler Romania, talks about the new business strategy and its impact on the operations of the local subsidiary of the group, adapting to the difficult pandemic context, digitalization and Industry 4.0.
Automotive Tomorrow: How would you characterize the evolution of the company in 2020 and 2021 in 5 words?
Sorin Poteraș: Flexibility, agility, transformation, Roadmap 2025, Industry 4.0.
Automotive Tomorrow: What are the measures implemented during the last year and a half in order to reduce costs and increase performance?
Sorin Poteraș: The automotive sector is subject to significant change and the corona pandemic has further increased the need for continuous transformation. In this context, at the group level, the Automotive Technologies division has introduced successfully a further development of its organizational structure. The objective here is to enable better building synergies, highlight the company’s existing strengths, and align these to the changes in our customers’ requirements. The market conditions have been rapidly changing and that is why we responded to this situation. Through our new organization, we are strengthening our position as the preferred technology partner for our customers in order to actively shape the transformation.
Automotive Tomorrow: What were your expectations regarding the evolution of the company and the industry segments you are targeting at the beginning of 2021 and what are they now?
Sorin Poteraș: As a global automotive and an industrial supplier, it is vital for the Schaeffler Group to correctly calibrate to market developments and opportunities. A success story in this regard is the Romanian Schaeffler location, that developed into our largest manufacturing footprint site within the group. Still, we live challenging times and in order to maintain our competitiveness in this increasing intensity of global competition, we need to regularly review our strategic direction and harness opportunities. Most of all, we need to drive collaboration between all stakeholders, speed up decision-making and play to our strengths as effectively as possible to successfully transform and position for the future. Concerning the local organization, last year brought in good results. The revenue level increased by 1.67% in 2020. In 2021, the focus was on consolidating our status as a top manufacturer with a research and development competence that will provide a long-term strategic orientation and added value for Brașov.
Sorin Poteraș, General Manager Schaeffler Romania “Industry 4.0, digitalization and sustainability are most important aspects of the Roadmap 2025. Embracing digital technologies at every opportunity is vital to boosting innovation, agility and efficiency in our organization and remaining successful in an increasingly digitalized world”
Automotive Tomorrow: How does the trend of e-mobility and electrification influence production operations, the company’s business strategy? What percentage of the components produced for the automotive segment in the factory in Brașov are for internal combustion engines and what percentage for hybrid or electric ones?
Sorin Poteraș: The trend towards new mobility, as in e-mobility, alternative mobility concepts, connectivity, and autonomous driving, will impact both our products and our business model. Key drivers here include the rapid pace of regulatory and technological changes and increasing urbanization. Our company sees a growing preference for new electrified powertrain technologies. In parallel, it recognizes that the effective implementation of new mobility concepts will require mechatronic technologies at both component and system level. Schaeffler experts already postulated earlier than others that we expect around 30 percent electric, 40 percent hybrid, and only 30 percent internal combustion engines in new cars in 2030.
Automotive Tomorrow: The automotive industry is facing a lot of disruptions in the value chain at the moment. What has been the company’s approach in this regard?
Sorin Poteraș: Our broad portfolio in the automotive and industrial segment has proven to serve us well in difficult times and has helped us to weather the crisis relatively well. We used the year to perfect our corporate strategy and orient it toward new opportunities. With our business strategy – Roadmap 2025, our main focus is to make us even more competitive and fit for the future. In the Automotive Technologies division, this essentially means developing the already excellent product portfolio increasingly towards electric mobility and chassis applications.
Automotive Tomorrow: What Industry 4.0 solutions and technologies are implemented in the Schaeffler factory in Brașov in the production or logistics area and how have they contributed to increasing the company’s competitiveness?
Sorin Poteraș: Industry 4.0, digitalization and sustainability are most important aspects of the Roadmap 2025, as well. Embracing digital technologies at every opportunity is vital to boosting innovation, agility and efficiency in our organization, and remaining successful in an increasingly digitalized world. As part of the Roadmap 2025, Schaeffler is therefore consistently driving forward the transformation of its production plants into semi-autonomous, digital and sustainable factories of the future. The groundbreaking development of an innovative, dynamically integrated production system for digitalizing tool manufacturing is an important step in this transformation. Consequently, our production environment is changing faster and faster, adapting to new products and challenges. The leveraging of data and its evaluation are becoming more important, machines are increasingly interconnected, and augmented and virtual reality and cobots are part of our everyday routines.
Automotive Tomorrow: Did the pandemic context in any way influence the company’s investment plans? What are the next steps in the development of the company, what can be seen on the horizon for Schaeffler Romania?
Sorin Poteraș: Our aim is to stay as flexible as possible and adjust our capabilities to the new requirements of the market, both in the Automotive sector and in the Industry sector. The development plans continue to be implemented within the production, and product portfolio. Mentioning also our R&D campus, one of the most important investments in the last years was the inauguration of the company’s second R&D center at the end of 2019, a modern Schaeffler product testing center. Through this investment, the Schaeffler Group has consolidated its R&D strategy at the location in Brașov, adding a new activity to the existing ones. The products that will be validated in the new test center are used in both industrial and automotive applications. Test engineers will use the latest technologies available for a wide range of tests, such as durability and functionality.
Automotive Tomorrow: In terms of workforce and new talent, correlated with the future plans of the company, what are the needs of Schaeffler Romania? How do you prepare new employees or future employees so that they have the necessary skills and abilities for the future?
Sorin Poteraș: We consolidated and kept the Schaeffler Romania staff united and results-oriented, the team being made up of approximately 5,000 employees and growing. We continue to invest in the qualification and development of the skills of our employees, taking into account their career interests, but also the requirements that come from the business, facilitating lifelong learning opportunities. Thus, we have adopted alternative development methods, e.g. through online courses to adapt where possible to remote collaboration or going directly in the production lines and the shopfloor.
