Scania annual report 2003

CUTOMERS AND PRODUCTS
Tailor-made vehicles and engines
Scania has an integrated product
concept that combines vehicles,
service-related products and financing.
Through its collective
knowledge in these fields, Scania
continuously contributes to the
profitability of its customers.
The competitive, logistic and market situation
of customers constantly changes.
This poses new challenges for their
vehicles.
A modular product range
The better Scania vehicles and servicerelated
products are adapted to the customer’s
transport tasks, the higher the
customer’s profitability will be. Scania’s
modular system is basically a “toolbox” in
which most components can be used in
many different combinations. This gives
customers almost unlimited possibilities
to tailor their vehicles to a specific task.
Scania’s challenge is to supply the customer
with an optimally configured vehicle.
A global product range
The unique “toolbox” also makes it possible
for Scania to meet the widely varying
needs of customers with a global product
range, while preserving economies of
scale in development and production.
Unlike many other vehicle manufacturers,
Scania has a single product range for all
markets in the world. Furthermore, the
work at all of Scania’s production units
around the world is governed by common
methods from the Scania Production System.
The same global quality and environmental
standards apply throughout
Scania.
Quality at every level
Scania has a cohesive quality monitoring
system – from product development
through production and servicing of the
product operated by customers. This work
is based on identifying deviations before
they create problems for customers. Such
a working method requires knowledge and
foresight. For procurement units, it is a
matter of choosing good, reliable suppliers.
In production units, the quality of working
methods is refined through the continuous
efforts of improvement teams. The challenge
to the sales and service organisation
is to understand the customer’s business to
be able to tailor vehicles for optimal transport
work. For the service market, preventive
maintenance is the best way to keep
malfunctions from happening and help the
customer avoid expensive downtime.
Environmental adaptation of products
Most of the environmental impact of a
vehicle, 95 percent, occurs during its
service life. Continuous development work
enables Scania to constantly improve
the environmental impact of its products.
Strategic areas of the products’ environmental
performance include emissions of
exhaust components, chemical content
and residual processing. Aside from
Scania’s internal development targets,
future legal requirements on products
weigh heavily in the development task.
If Scania’s customers are to continue
investing in the company’s products both
vehicles and service solutions must undergo
constant development. Important objectives
are lower weight, lower operating
cost and longer service life.
ANNUAL REPORT 2003 20