An international school of Lean Manufacturing opens at Flins

Jose-Vicente de Los Mozos, Executive Vice President, Manufacturing and Supply Chain, of the Renault Group, inaugurated the International School of Lean Manufacturing yesterday. Created jointly with Renault Consulting, this school is located in a building at the Flins plant and is part of the Global Training Center (GTC) there.

The International School of Lean Manufacturing is intended for all senior executives and managers of the Renault group’s plants worldwide and is also open to Renault Consulting clients outside of the Group. The school will provide training in lean manufacturing, that is, in how to produce without waste by reducing in-process inventories and unproductive activities while improving workstation efficiency.

Jose-Vicente de Los Mozos , Executive Vice President, Manufacturing and Supply Chain, in the Renault group, says: “ The opening of a lean manufacturing school, the first in the Renault group, marks a step forward in our command of the production system by creating the ability to transmit skills to achieve excellence outside of the Group. It also illustrates our aim of maintaining and developing these skills within the company to boost the performance of our manufacturing facilities" .

With the opening of this school of lean manufacturing, a practical, comprehensive training course that will be of interest to clients outside of the company is being added to the GTC programs at Flins.

A particular feature of Renault’s lean manufacturing school is that teaching will be done through a hands-on approach that will encourage the sharing and mutual development of best practices. The training will focus on:   - management of work flow processes using, for example, the “just-in-time” production strategy: Working in an evolving mini-workshop module, trainees may be asked to lower costs or optimize space and inventories (reduce floor areas by seven-eighths, achieve zero defects, double productivity, reduce in-process inventories by four-fifths), while simplifying the work of operators.- management of the reliability and flexibility of resources (analysis of machine stoppages, autonomous and programmed maintenance, training and leadership, capitalization of improvements in projects, rapid change).- management of quality and day-to-day operations.

Philippe Jombart , Managing Director of Renault Consulting, says: “ Achieving the best manufacturing performance in a motivating work environment is the objective of the training offered by the lean manufacturing school at Flins. This starts with the training of senior executives and managers, who have a leadership role in relation to the teams. The Renault school offers very operationally focused training modules, with concrete cases and the quantitative assessment of results. Our first external client, a world leader in the field of elastomers, has asked us to train 60 managers from the United States, Europe and Asia in an MBA-type work-study program. ”

The lean manufacturing school is located in a building at the Flins plant and is part of Renault’s Global Training Center (GTC) there. It will thus be able to benefit from the resources and manufacturing expertise found at the site and use the manufacturing facilities for the practical training in the program. Created in 2008 with an initial investment of €3 million, the GTC at Flins trained 600 people in 2013. Offering a range of excellent programs, this training center reconstructs a manufacturing environment based on best practices to ensure that the performance of the body-assembly plants is among the highest in the world.

Its missions, like those of the GTC at Cléon (opened in 2010 for the powertrain plants), are to:  - develop manufacturing skills, particularly in areas like electromechanics and geometry (geometric analysis, tooling geometry), maintenance (mechanics, electromechanics, automation), tooling (tool-and-die making, press operations);- create occupational standards, tools for certifying skills, and training programs;- carry out training in manufacturing skills to meet the highest standards;- centralize the development of training methods.