From the September 1 this year, Renault’s Michel Faivre-Duboz will move from his position as vice president of global supply chain to take up a new position as general manager of Renault in Morocco. He will be in charge of all Renault operations in Morocco, including the industrial project at Tangier, the manufacturing plant in Casablanca and commercial activities. Faivre-Duboz will report to Jacques Chauvet, leader of the Euromed Region.
His replacement as vice president of global supply chain will be Yves Caracatzanis (pictured), currently director of logistics project planning reporting to Michel Gornet and Christian Mardrus.
Caracatzanis joined Renault in 1992 as a logistics project manager and worked in Flins from 1995, before becoming head of the plant's Quality Department for the launch of Clio III. In 2005, he was appointed head of vehicle prototype engineering until June 2008 when he took up the duties of planning and logistic projects.
It was in that year that Faivre-Duboz took up his role as vice president of global supply chain, having moved from head of vehicle engineering for Renault, and created a new supply chain department. In a cover story interview with Automotive Logistics last year,Faivre-Duboz said that he made the change at the request of CEO Carlos Ghosn who, in driving the company’s global expansion saw the need for “a very strong supply chain”. (read more here: http://www.automotivelogisticsmagazine.com/mgaview.ashx?id=32#/dc8291bd/20 )
Renault has since been making strong moves to combine logistics operations with Alliance partner Nissan, including the creation of a global and European logistics departments in 2009.
Faivre-Duboz’s move to Morocco comes at a significant time as the Renault-Nissan Alliance nears completion of its €600m ($770m) greenfield plant, reported to be the biggest car plant in Africa. It is expected to be finished at the beginning 2011, and will be based in the Melloussa Free Zone. The project, which will have a dedicated automotive park, is generating investment worth $1.8 billion, including logistics provision. Production at the plant is set to begin at the beginning of 2012, according to Renault.
The automotive park is part of a widescale development at the Tangier-Med Industrial Park, currently under construction in Morocco, which the Alliance was attracted to because of the supplier and logistics facilities, and the development of the adjacent port as one of the biggest transhipment platforms in the world (read more here).
