Scania Annual Report 2011

SCANIA’S STRATEGY
17
Methods for sustainable profitability
One core element of Scania’s strategy is involving its employees, who take responsibility for
boosting efficiency and for making improvements. Scania encourages a holistic perspective
through cross-functional (interdepartmental) groups and other methods that provide the basis
for high productivity, the best possible quality and healthier employees.
Scania has worked to involve its employees in continuous
improvements efforts since the early 1990s. Good
experience of these efforts at production units, including
higher healthy attendance, lower employee turnover,
higher quality and less waste of resources, has led to
the application of similar principles in administration and
the sales and service organisation as well as in research
and development.
Improvement activities are driven by Scania’s employees,
with the support of managers and Group executives.
There is a strong emphasis on working methods
instead of traditional earnings targets. The focus is
cutting lead times and boosting flexibility by eliminating
waste of time and resources.
Cross-functional working method
An important part of efficiency improvement work
occurs in cross-functional (interdepartmental) groups.
Representatives from research and development,
production, purchasing, sales and services cooperate
in these groups. All employees are aware of the value of
their delivery to the next stage in the work flow, reducing
the risk of waste, ensuring quality at an early stage and
shortening lead times to customers for both new products
and services.
While ensuring that the need for specialised expertise
is met, Scania encourages its employees to change
work duties within different areas of the company in
order to gain a holistic perspective on its operations.
Everyone is responsible for improvements
Involving all employees is at the core of efforts to improve
efficiency. Time to work with continuous improvements
is part of normal operations. This has led to a way
of thinking that is very important for the development of
Scania’s employees and organisation. A large proportion
of improvement efforts has shifted from staff and
management levels to the individual employee.
Identifying and eliminating deviations
Scania’s working methods are described in “standards”.
Employees are encouraged to find deviations from the
standard described which disrupt or prevent opera-
Visualisation makes cross-functional improvement work easier.
tions from working optimally. Deviations must not be sent
onward, either internally or to the customer. By finding deviations,
it is possible to test and evaluate new solutions,
which later lead to a new standard. When a new solution
has been introduced at a unit, it is spread methodically to
other units in the global Scania organisation.
Steady productivity and quality improvements
Continuous efforts to identify deviations and improve
methods and processes occur according to various
concepts adapted to the different branches of operations.
These are the Scania Production System (SPS) at production
units, the Scania Retail System (SRS) in the sales and
service organisation and R&D Factory at research and
development units.
Continuous improvements are crucial in order for
Scania to grow in a capital-efficient manner. With limited
investments, it is possible to sell more products and
services, build more vehicles, serve a larger number of
customers more quickly and develop more products,
without equally large growth in the workforce, resources
or need for premises.
Established working methods are of crucial importance
to Scania’s ability to continuously improve its productivity
and quality and thereby grow within its existing structure.
Operations Scania 2011