All Europe articles – Page 8
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Q&A: Florian Huettl
Can you outline your role in Renault’s approach to sales and operations planning (S&OP)?I’m the vice-president of sales forecast and distribution. I work in sales and I run the S&OP together with my colleagues from supply chain. That already tells you something about Renault’s approach to S&OP; we manage ...
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Progress for all to CEE
In past decades, international investment has flowed into the automotive industry in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) primarily due to it being a low-cost production centre. However, these days the region has much more to attract such investment, including a well-trained workforce, a wide-ranging supplier base and improving logistics infrastructure, ...
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Stepping up the pace
When Groupe PSA bought Opel/Vauxhall from GM in 2017 for €2.2 billion ($2.33 billion), Gefco was already providing logistics services for it. Then, when Opel/Vauxhall renewed its contract for fourth-party logistics (4PL) services with Gefco in October 2018 for a further four years, Gefco was tasked with finding further cost ...
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Russia keeps logistics subsidy in place
The Russian government will not cancel logistics subsidies for the automotive industry, although all other “targeted subsidies” currently allocated to carmakers and components manufacturers will cease, Russian vice-prime minister Dmitry Kozak, revealed during an industry meeting in Moscow, December 7.Kozak explained that carmakers had asked the federal authorities to keep ...
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Contrasting trends mark Mexico's car market
Domestic sales of light vehicles are down, exports are up, while production is little changed. These are the key trends in recent months to emerge from the latest survey of the Mexican market by the country’s sector body AMIA. The 1.28m vehicles sold in the year to November represented a ...
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Ukraine sanctions risk Russian vehicle exports
The growth in Russian vehicle exports during 2018 could be in jeopardy if a new bill to ban Russian vehicle imports is passed by the government in Ukraine, one of the biggest sales markets for Russian-made cars.According to figures from the Russian Federal Customs Service, in the first nine months ...
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Ground broken at new BMW logistics centre in Austria
A ground-breaking ceremony was held this week to mark the official start of construction of a new logistics centre at Steyr, Austria, to serve BMW’s nearby engine plant. Contract logistics services provider Industrie-Logistik-Linz will rent the property and use it to consolidate activities from several of BMW Steyr’s external warehouses ...
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Faurecia deploys AGVs in Spain
Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are now working alongside workers and robots at Faurecia’s car seat manufacturing plant in Vitoria-Gasteiz, northern Spain.Through a weightless handling system, workers transfer the car seat from the end of the line to the AGV, which then delivers it to a loading robot.The vehicle then takes ...
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Sovac starts assembling SKD kits for Audi in Algeria
Audi has begun assembling vehicles at the Relizane plant run by its long-time Algerian partner, Sovac, from semi-knockdown (SKD) kits prepared at the OEM’s Ingolstadt plant in Germany.“[All models] are built at the main plant in Ingolstadt and transported to Barcelona, where they are knocked down into individual assembly groups ...
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BMW ups the pace on industry 4.0 technology
BMW Group is to expand its use of industry 4.0 innovations in its production logistics, it has revealed. In 2015, BMW Group joined forces with the Fraunhofer Institute IML to develop the first self-driving Smart Transport Robots (STR). Three years later, the carmaker is increasingly relying on innovations from industry ...
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Gefco edges nearer flotation
Gefco has reaffirmed it is looking to make a public offering on the Euronext Paris stock exchange in 2019. Russian Railways, which has a majority stake in the transport and logistics provider, said it was considering a partial reduction of its 75% stake to below 50%.Gefco’s former owner and partial ...
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Mercedes-Benz takes to rail to move cars to China
Russia’s railway monopoly RZD has delivered the first batch of finished Mercedes-Benz vehicles from Bremerhaven, in Germany, to Chongqing in China. The new route, which is informally referred to as the new Silk Road, has already proved a viable alternative to ocean shipping vehicles from Europe to China, which takes ...
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PSA buys shares in China's UAP
Carmaker Groupe PSA has purchased a stake in Chinese spare parts supplier UAP, based in Shandong province, as part of the French group’s expansion in China strategy.The latest acquisition is a first step and could lead to a greater interest in UAP, with several steps defined to increase PSA’s participation, ...
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BMW supports cobalt miners in Congo
BMW has signed up to a pilot project to improve conditions for cobalt miners, their families and neighbouring communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).With batteries in high demand given the boom in electrical vehicles, global companies such as BMW have been turning their attention to how cobalt ...
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VW Autoeuropa plant forced to ship via Leixões
Strikes at the Portuguese port of Setúbal that are expected to continue into January have forced Volkswagen to switch exports of its T-Roc SUV, made at the Autoeuropa plant in Palmela, to the northern port of Leixões.According to the ports administration of Douro, Leixões and Viana do Castelo (APDL), the ...
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Russia continues to increase finished vehicle imports
Russia imported 212,400 finished vehicles from January to November of 2018, which is an increase of 15.8% compared to the same period of last year, Russian Federal Customs Service (FCS) estimated. The overall value of finished vehicles imports during that period reached $5.2 billion, FCS added.Almost 33% of passenger cars ...
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British automotive industry finds new markets
Asia was the fastest growing foreign market for the UK’s automotive sector last year, with the value of exported goods up 21% on 2016, a new survey has shown.The Asian increase helped lift the sector’s total exports to £40 billion ($51.5 billion) – a 26% increase in two years – ...
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FCA to set up parts centre at Rivalta
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) is to turn the historic Fiat plant at Rivalta, near Turin, into a parts distribution centre (PDC) serving Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), among other markets. The new PDC in Italy will support customers at more than 5,000 locations, significantly improving delivery time to ...
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Gefco signs up for new inbound and outbound services
Components supplier Plastic Omnium has signed a contract with Gefco for the management of inbound plastic components through the logistics provider’s Halewood facility in the UK and onto its plant in Warrington. Gefco has also announced partnerships with Actility and Wakeo to more accurately track the cradles used to deliver ...
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Carlson adopts Effitrailer telematics system
Carlson Vehicle Transfer has adopted Michelin's Effitrailer telematics system across its fleet of 150 finished vehicle carriers. Carlson, which is owned by Groupe Cat, transports finished vehicles across the UK and Europe.The Effitrailer system measures trailer tyre pressure, as well as providing an onboard data link and electronic braking system ...