Smart Car
ABSTRACT
This paper will focus and investigate the SMART car sculptured by Micro Compact Car (MCC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler-Benz. Hambach, France was chosen as the production site, where the main suppliers were integrated in a supplier’s park called “Smart Ville”. MCC used such supply chain practices which were never used before such as supplier involvement, outsourcing the main manufacturing and modular production. Complete modules were attached in the rigid body frame called “Tridion”. The lead time is just under 5 hours, which is exceptionally good in automobile industry.
However, the management of MCC is facing some issues related to manage and control the supply chain where MCC just contributes 15% of value added. The case study “Smart Car and smart logistics” gained special attention from the academics and automobile professionals.
INTRODUCTION
“Difficult situations inspire ingenious solutions” (English proverb).It is true with Smart car. The scarcity of parking spaces and pressure exerted from the environment friendly pressure groups induce the organisations to think artistically.
Daimler-Benz and Swatch are the two companies which came upwith the joint venturetoproduce the idea of Micro Compact Car (MCC) or simply the Smart Car. The thinking was to combine the talents and values of both companies to create a conceptually new car (see appendix). The manufacturers aimed at manufacturing wallet friendly, city friendly and eco-friendly without compromising the individual mobility concept.
MCCused innovative practices in the industry such as: customization, waiting time were shorten, suppliers co-invested in the project and final assembly was merely 10% of the production cost price. About 80% of the smart car can be recycled (dirt to dirt). This bears a resemblance to“the functional chain awareness school” indicated by Bechtel and Jayaram (1997).This model is very close to porter’s value chain which explicitly mentions flow of
This paper will focus and investigate the SMART car sculptured by Micro Compact Car (MCC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler-Benz. Hambach, France was chosen as the production site, where the main suppliers were integrated in a supplier’s park called “Smart Ville”. MCC used such supply chain practices which were never used before such as supplier involvement, outsourcing the main manufacturing and modular production. Complete modules were attached in the rigid body frame called “Tridion”. The lead time is just under 5 hours, which is exceptionally good in automobile industry.
However, the management of MCC is facing some issues related to manage and control the supply chain where MCC just contributes 15% of value added. The case study “Smart Car and smart logistics” gained special attention from the academics and automobile professionals.
INTRODUCTION
“Difficult situations inspire ingenious solutions” (English proverb).It is true with Smart car. The scarcity of parking spaces and pressure exerted from the environment friendly pressure groups induce the organisations to think artistically.
Daimler-Benz and Swatch are the two companies which came upwith the joint venturetoproduce the idea of Micro Compact Car (MCC) or simply the Smart Car. The thinking was to combine the talents and values of both companies to create a conceptually new car (see appendix). The manufacturers aimed at manufacturing wallet friendly, city friendly and eco-friendly without compromising the individual mobility concept.
MCCused innovative practices in the industry such as: customization, waiting time were shorten, suppliers co-invested in the project and final assembly was merely 10% of the production cost price. About 80% of the smart car can be recycled (dirt to dirt). This bears a resemblance to“the functional chain awareness school” indicated by Bechtel and Jayaram (1997).This model is very close to porter’s value chain which explicitly mentions flow of