The SAS joint-venture between Siemens VDO and Faurecia has helped to establish the two companies as the European market leaders in the outsourced cockpit assembly business – the joint-venture currently produces around 3.5m units a year – mostly in Europe.
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Now the two companies are looking to grow in North America, so far separately, but potentially in an extension of their European alliance.
Siemens plans to grow its cockpit business in North America to $US250m by 2010.
“We will start with several small projects and then, subject to positive feedback, will move on to bigger projects and bigger volumes” said Frank Homann, vice president of Siemens VDO’s North American cockpit modules and systems division.
The market has been a tough one for suppliers to make money in. Executives at Johnson Controls, for example, told SupplierBusiness that they were holding back from the area because the pricing was so poor.
Collins and Aikman and Delphi, both currently operating in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, are significant players in the North American cockpit market. Other suppliers include Lear and Visteon.
But Siemens believes that it has developed a concept that will enable real savings. Siemens is offering a four-module design concept (CESAR – Cockpit Electro-Mechanical System Architecture) that will drive a break-through in North America.
It allows for cockpit components and design to be interchanged more easily during production and updated and serviced at any time. Approaching cockpits as a ‘mechatronic system’ rather than a series of independent devices allows the integration of the electronic components – which leads to a reduction in cost and an increase in interior configuration flexibility.
Homann says that Siemens has demonstrated that the average cost saving gained in passenger cars through the CESAR integration technology, depending on the specific vehicle, equates to around a 30% saving in terms of electronics and a 12%-18% overall cost saving in cockpit production.
Siemens has contracts for North America for 2011, and is actively looking for 2009 business. “We are now in final negotiations with a leading OEM to implement CESAR globally as the common electrical system architecture for their next model generation” said Homann. Since October last year, Siemens has been more active in their recruitment of engineers from within the industry to work on the CESAR project.
Faurecia executives are also looking at cockpits – approaching the market from the Instrument panel, structure and materials usage.
Faurecia is currently promoting its “Happy Attitude” customisable interior concept in North America, focussing on cost conscious innovations.
Company executives say that they have made joint presentations to potential North American customers, and recent business won by Faurecia included the upgraded instrument panel for the facelifted DaimlerChrysler PT Cruiser.
Faurecia sees its business in North America growing from €1.54bn in 2005 to€3bn by 2010.
Edmund Chew
SupplierBusiness
