Plastic Omnium - 2018 Registration Document

3 STATEMENT OF NON-FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE CSR at the heart of our strategy PLASTIC OMNIUM 2018 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT 91 A COMPANY DRIVEN BY ITS LONG-TERM 3.1.2.1 COMPETITIVENESS The automotive industry is by its nature a very competitive sector. Customers are very demanding in terms of the costs, deadlines and quality required from suppliers. Plastic Omnium Group has developed a strong culture of industrial excellence, performance and competitiveness. Its excellence is regularly acknowledged by customers who give awards to the Group overall or to particular sites. This competitiveness is achieved through seeking industrial excellence with innovative programs to develop industrial efficiency. Every plant pursues its continuous improvement programs with benchmarks enabling best practice to be identified and shared. In an uncertain economic context, the Company is expanding its optimization program to better fit with its customers’ requirements, by developing its production flexibility and reducing fixed and structural costs. A complete prototype of the “industry ambition 4.0” development program, which will be deployed at the Greer plant in the United States for Intelligent Exterior Systems, will make a significant contribution to maintaining industrial performance. The program will then gradually be rolled out to all plants. For Clean Energy Systems, the existing site at Compiègne has been selected to validate the solutions that will be rolled out thereafter. Three areas for improvement are planned: maintenance will become predictive: maintenance costs as well as the ● number of interruptions to manufacturing will be reduced; quality management will be based on Big Data analysis enabling ● fault-free products to be manufactured and faulty parts reduced; automation will enable a transition from manual operations to digitized ● industry, optimizing inventories and labor costs. Plant 4.0 will, in the future, enable industrial performance to be improved while reducing environmental impacts at the same time. Energy savings, waste reduction and, therefore, a reduction in necessary production capacities will allow Plastic Omnium to offer higher value-added products for its customers while containing prices. PRODUCT SAFETY AND QUALITY 3.1.2.2 Guaranteeing product quality is indispensable in order to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction and retention. Reliability in use and user safety also depend on quality. Indeed, tanks and energy storage systems are considered as safety components and are subject to rigorous standards. Body parts, such as bumpers, must reduce risks to people as far as possible in the event of an accident. It is therefore essential that product quality and safety be guaranteed from design through to its use. To achieve this, the Group has committed all of its sites to IATF 16949 certification, a standard specific to the automotive industry whose requirements include those of the ISO 9001 standard. This recently launched standard, or the ISO 9001 standard, are implemented at all of Plastic Omnium’s Industries Division sites. The correct implementation and use of the standards are regularly audited. In 2018, 81% of sites were accordingly audited. In the Group’s Code of Conduct, which was revised in 2018, all employees are asked to commit to guarantee product quality and safety. Plastic Omnium’s high requirements, whether in terms of design, quality or safety are one of the Group’s excellence factors. Through the individual commitment of each of its employees, the Group is committed to complying with all current legal requirements and standards, implementing the checks necessary throughout a product’s life and being reactive when a discrepancy is detected. Each Division has its own unit dedicated to ensuring product quality and safety. Each Division deploys its own quality policy implemented by the regional and country management and a quality network within the production quality, project quality, system quality and supplier quality departments. A robust quality management system has been introduced, which the “design essentials” feed into, for example, and which allows skills to be improved through the continual incorporation of feedback. Quality criteria are taken into account from the very beginning of exploratory research projects. For example, for future projects, such as hydrogen tanks, the risks are different to those of traditional fuel tanks and therefore require adaptations or even an overhaul of the expected quality criteria. When products are developed in response to customer requests, quality criteria are also reviewed and approved by Plastic Omnium whose requirements, which are identical throughout the world, are sometimes higher than those in local regulations. Actively monitoring regulations ensures that Plastic Omnium’s requirement level remains compliant with the strictest legal requirements. Physical test areas at Σ -Sigmatech, for Intelligent Exterior Systems, and at α -Alphatech for Clean Energy Systems, allow predictions, particularly about durability, quality and safety, to be verified on prototypes. These test areas are also used to test products in production. Plastic Omnium then works in close collaboration with its customers when a problem is identified during a product’s lifetime on the market. According to the origin of the defect, the carmaker or Plastic Omnium implements the necessary action plans to correct the defect and to prevent its reappearance on other models by providing feedback into, for example, the “design essentials”. Product quality also depends on the quality of materials, components and services provided by suppliers, subcontractors and service providers. One of the selection criteria for approving a supplier is the robustness of its quality management system. According to the products, suppliers must be ISO 9001 or IATF 16949 compliant. An on-site audit will confirm whether it can be referenced. Once referenced, and during projects, the quality of components or materials provided is audited on a regular basis. Product quality and safety is therefore ensured: between 2017 and 2018, non-quality was decreased by 30% for Clean Energy Systems and 20% for Intelligent Exterior Systems.