Volkswagen Group guns for improved supplier synergies

The Volkswagen Group met with its key global suppliers in Wolfsburg yesterday for the kick-off event of the new Volkswagen FAST (Future Automotive Supply Tracks) program.

Dr Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz, Member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft responsible for Procurement, launched the new corporate initiative together with development and procurement board members of the Group brands.

"The automotive industry is changing fundamentally. New technologies and shorter product cycles pose challenges for our industry. In future, a key success factor will be a highly efficient global supplier network," said Procurement Board Member Garcia Sanz at the kick-off event. The Group-wide Volkswagen FAST initiative targets the best partners in Volkswagen's international supplier network. "Together with our partners, we intend to forge ahead with the globalization and innovations of our brand and the entire automotive industry and to actively shape the future of the industry," Garcia Sanz emphasised.

The objective of the FAST program is to prioritise investments and make efficient use of resources in closer cooperation with suppliers. Volkswagen aims to boost the number of product and process innovations and to coordinate them even more effectively.

The first step will be to identify the best suppliers in an agreed selection procedure. Only these companies will receive access to Volkswagen FAST. These partners will be involved in innovation cycles within the Group at an earlier stage. For this purpose, VW has established a new innovation interface. In return, FAST partners will also contribute their ideas to the pre-series development of vehicles at an earlier stage. At the same time, production networks between Volkswagen and its partners will be harmonised even more closely in the context of the globalisation strategies in order to generate further synergy effects and derive the maximum possible benefit.