Automn/Fall 2006 · nº 47 Pune The New Engineering Design Centre “T”stands for Transport Trends and Colours NEWS Published by Grupo Antolin Grupo Antolin is an international company at the cutting edge of design and production of components for car interiors for the automobile industry. Present in 21 countries, it has a workforce of more than 10, 400 employees. Legal Deposit: M-18594-2006 EDITORIAL BOARD Grupo Antolin Human Resources Department Carretera Madrid Irún, km. 244,8 E 09007 BURGOS - SPAIN Tel. 34 947 47 77 00 Fax: 34 947 47 79 48 www.grupoantolin.com EDITORIAL OFFICE Department of Human Resources Leticia Fernández · [email protected] DESIGN Germán Delgado · [email protected] PHOTOGRAPHY Rafa Sáiz PRINTED BY COIMAN C/ Marqués de Portugalete, 16 E 28027 MADRID - ESPAÑA Tel. 34 91 742 12 03 Fax: 34 91 742 67 81 Summary page 3 in first person page 4 cover Engineering Design Centre in GA Pune page 8 designing the future Trends and Colours page 10 report e-financing: I+D+i page 13 the major figures “T” stands for Transport page 16 the history corner Ford, the dream becomes a business page 18 the photo B:58 page 20 in brief News in brief page 32 health My head hurts page 34 on the way Lower Saxony 2 news grupo antolin ·Autumn 2006 Ernesto Antolín Vice President Enthusiasm and drive to be best in class The epigraph of this editorial is one of Grupo Antolin’s VALUES, included in our Policy and Strategy. This value spurs us on to be the best in product, process and management. We often focus only on product and process excellence, but what also distinguishes the best companies in the world is their MANAGEMENT excellence. What do we understand by Management Excellence? Organisations, which stand out as an Example, base their success on two basic pillars: their capacity to improve and standardisation. Organisations such as Toyota have demonstrated that their learning capacity is what has made them a worldwide reference in results, growth and management. The important thing is to learn from mistakes and to provide our systems with feedback so these mistakes do not happen again. This attitude maintains the equilibrium between apparently conflicting values: rigour in compli- ance with the rules compared with agility and efficiency to continuously improve them. Standardisation, correctly understood, is not “to everyone’s liking”. The key to success lies in maintaining equilibrium, in being flexible and respecting standards. These turn into bureaucracy if they do not evolve based on the users’ experience. All of this will lead us to share knowledge, to speak a common language and understand what others do. The Managers guide this standardisation and learning process heading the implementation of systems and going in depth not only into “what” but also into “how”. The Intermediate Managers get involved in solving daily problems trying to share their “know-how” and finally the Technicians and Workers enter improvement dynamics that will lead them to increase their competences and move towards Excellence. In such a competitive sector as ours, the reason to fight, innovate and wish to be the best is not a whim, it is not an ambition, either; it is a need to SURVIVE. This is the decisive and critical time. The turning point of the market, where the best will triumph and the mediocre will fail. Each and every one of the areas and activities of our Group must become immersed in this process. Design, Development and Industrialisation must adopt these dynamics. We have potential, knowledge and opportunities within GA to be a leading company on a world- wide level. In January this year we launched SP (Grupo Antolin Production System) in our com- pany as a Strategic Improvement Initiative that reinforces both learning and standardisation in each and every one of our companies and managements. We are all going to have to give our time and efforts to implement it. It is also going to require an important management commit- ment. We must not fall into the normal trap whereby solving daily complications does not allow us to work properly. We must spend time on initiatives such as the one proposed, which are going to prevent the existence of the day’s, week’s, month’s and next year’s problem. ...in first person The Grupo top management is going pay special attention to how the implementation of the SPGA advances. I am sure that with the support and commitment of the whole executive team maximum we will obtain maximum yield from this important initiative. fall 2006 · news grupo antolin 3 COVER Inauguration of NEW Design Centre of Grupo Antolin in PUNE The opening ceremony for the new facility of the Grupo Antolin Pune Engineering Design Centre on 4th. July by some members of the Board of Directors and local executives. The Centre houses the corporate wing in this country apart from giving service to all companies worldwide. Last July, Maria Helena Antolin as the Although the old centre was located in ga Space Information Technology Park DEOM Director, Pablo Baroja as DOAPP the heart of the city, last year’s growth located in Viman Nagar, the newly de- Director and Ismael Del Moral, as Graph- in the company begged a move to bigger veloped suburb of Pune. A lot of effort has ic Engineering representative graced this facilities. been put in to making this facility a very occasion and opened the new facilities functional and comfortable place to work of Grupo Antolin Pune in India: the Pune Near to the city airport , the new facility bearing in mind the aesthetic sense and Engineering Design Centre. is located in a technologically upbeat Gi- a pleasing colour scheme. 4 news grupo antolin ·Autumn 2006 Near to the city airport, the new facility is The new centre is spread over 6500 located in a sq.feet. The facility boasts various func- technologically tional spaces, which also include a cafe- teria and well appointed conference upbeat Giga rooms. The Design Centre will also house Space the corporate wing of Grupo Antolin Pune. The design centre has also set up Information a CAE department to boost the allied de- Technology sign services and has started offering meshing, static and dynamic simulation Park located in services. Viman Nagar, the newly developed A piece of history suburb of Grupo Antolin started its India operations Pune. in 1996 with its strategy of accompany- ing its customers in various geographies with its manufacturing plant in Ranjan- gaon. The think tank at Grupo Antolin headquarters soon realised the growth potential exhibited by the Asian automo- tive market and by the Indian Auto- motive market in particular. They also felt that there is a vast pool of qualified en- gineers available in this region that can work in the design and development area if trained adequately. Thus a very big decision was made to create a Glob- al Resource for Design and Engineer- ing for all the Grupo Antolin facilities. The design facility had a very modest beginning with an office of 1200 sq feet and 3 workstations. The designers who started with low priority 2D to 3D conver- sion jobs are currently integral parts of im- portant project teams. The design cen- tre operates in two shifts there by offer- ing the customers a faster turn around time. Even though the set up was small, the investment was made rightfully in creating a very robust IT infrastructure. All the designers were trained initially in Spain by the Graphics Engineering team. Today the training plan for news employees includes a three-month train- ing period at the Headquarters in Burgos. Right from the beginning the design cen- tre was benefited by great support from Graphic Engineering heads in Spain, the Department of Asia Pacific and top management of GA Pune. fall 2006 · news grupo antolin 5 Pablo Baroja - DOAAP Director From the internal to Thus it can be seen that the GA Design the external centre is providing key design resources Vilas Unavane - CEO India customer to almost all the important GA Design Lo- cations worldwide. Our engineers have also benefited hugely on account of The design centre has always consolidat- these onsite stints. They have used these ed before taking on the new customers opportunities to learn various design within the group. Grupo Antolin Ingene- guidelines, procedures and standards. ria at Burgos was the first customer in The same have been imparted to the 2002 followed by GA North America in team back home. The designers have 2003. The first co-ordinator Satish now worked on almost all the product Athavale was placed at the customer lines of Grupo Antolin including the new location in 2003 at GA North America. ones like sunroof mechanisms and mag- The centre has subsequently provided nesium parts. services to other Group Companies like Grupo Antolin France in Grupo Antolin After proving its capabilities in the Grupo Loire, Grupo Antolin Deutschland or Antolin engineering centres the Design Grupo Antolin Japan. This year the centre has been providing design Mª Helena Antolin - DEOM Director design centre has made further inroads services to Indian Automobile majors into Grupo Antolin companies with like Tata Motors, Mahindra And Mahin- initiating services to Grupo Antolin Trans- dra and Maruti Udyog since 2005. With port, Grupo Antolin Vosges in France, India being poised as one of the emerg- and Grupo Antolin Bohemia in the Czech ing automobile markets, the design cen- Republic. Since this time, our designers tre plans to target more external cus- have worked onsite in various Grupo tomers in the years to come.