Volkswagen Group invited its key global suppliers to Wolfsburg for the kick-off event of the new FAST (Future Automotive Supply Tracks) programme.
Francisco Sanz, head of procurement, launched the new corporate initiative together with development and procurement board members of the group brands.
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“The automotive industry is changing fundamentally. New technologies and shorter product cycles pose challenges for our industry. In future, a key success factor will be a highly efficient global supplier network,” said Sanz. The group-wide Volkswagen FAST initiative targets the best partners in Volkswagen’s international supplier network. “Together with our partners, we intend to forge ahead with the globalisation and innovations of our brand and the entire automotive industry and to actively shape the future of the industry,” Sanz said.
The objective of the FAST programme is to prioritise investments and make efficient use of resources in closer cooperation with suppliers. The company aims to boost the number of product and process innovations and to coordinate them even more effectively. The first step will be to identify the best suppliers in an agreed selection procedure. Only these companies will receive access to FAST. These partners will be involved in innovation cycles within the group at an earlier stage. For this purpose, the company has established a new innovation interface. In return, FAST partners will also contribute their ideas to the pre-series development of vehicles at an earlier stage. At the same time, production networks between Volkswagen and its partners will be harmonised even more closely in the context of the globalisation strategies in order to generate further synergy effects and derive the maximum possible benefit.
