financial report and registration document 2011 - Groupe SEB

In 2011, with only a few rare exceptions, the Group’s manufacturing facilities
operated normally, with full absorption of fi xed production costs. Specifi c,
targeted measures were taken on sites where capacity utilisation was lower.
The Group’s industrial competitiveness comes from its edge as a designer
of products, especially through its centres of expertise and technological
centres:
� product expertise centres bring together the specifi c expertise in research
and development, industrialisation and production for a given product
category;
� technological centres reinforce product expertise centres through their
knowledge of key technologies in relation to materials, plastics, and
electronics.
At relevant sites, project platforms foster collaboration between marketing
teams and centres of industrial expertise in the development of product
offerings.
To ensure and optimise the competitiveness of its industrial capacity, the
Group constantly upgrades its plants, taking into account the economic
reality of markets: adjustment of production volumes, relocation of handmixers
production to the Mayenne site, strict control of manufacturing costs,
refocusing of production and greater use of outsourcing, according to needs.
An ambitious operational excellence programme was launched in France
in 2011. It aims to optimise operations at production sites through the
collaboration of all employees. This programme is due to be deployed
outside of France in early 2012. Similar actions were carried out within Supor
and by the SEB Asia teams with regard to Chinese subcontractors.
Purchasing
Purchasing covers requirements for materials (metals, plastics, paper/
cardboard packaging, etc.) and components (parts, sub-systems, etc.)
for industry, non-production purchasing (transport and logistics, services,
information systems, travel, etc.) and purchases of sourced finished
products. Purchases are increasingly managed at Group level, to provide
optimum negotiation conditions, not only in terms of pricing, but also in terms
of quality, on-time delivery, etc. For several years now, production purchases
have benefi ted from a centralised organisation tailored to each project and
each contract. In 2011, for production purchases, the Group had a panel of
365 suppliers representing approximately 88% of global purchasing.
Non-production purchases currently follow the same process aimed at
better qualifying approved suppliers and building an across-the-board Group
purchasing methodology with a panel of approved suppliers (600 at yearend
2011). To this end, the team was signifi cantly reinforced, increasing
from 15 to 26 people with the aim of covering a much wider spectrum of
expenditures and a broader international scope (integration of Russia and
greater coverage in Colombia).
Financial Report and Registration Document 2011
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Presentation of the Group
Group strategy
The Group’s industrial competitive edge is also the result of manufacturing
capacity upgrades to meet increasingly high demand, as it is currently the
case in China. Expansion of the Wuhan site (Supor), dedicated to cookware,
was completed in 2011. This greatly increased production capacities.
Upgrades to the Shaoxing plant, built in 2009, were driven by the launch of
new electrical appliance categories. The Group thus re-integrated a portion
of its production (including electric kettle production) that had previously
been outsourced to Chinese subcontractors. In a similar effort to respond
to booming local demand, the Group now has an industrial presence in
Vietnam, with a Supor plant that is gradually ramping up, as well as the
Asia Fan production facilities, which supplement the Group’s non-culinary
product business.
At the same time, the Group strives constantly to improve employee safety
in the workplace. In this regard, a three-year plan has been launched, aiming
for a steady decrease in the number of workplace accidents.
Three to four years ago, the Group also introduced a global Supply
Chain Management system intended to rationalise stocks of finished
products, optimise the quality of these stocks and implement a process to
improve customer service. The actions undertaken resulted in signifi cant
improvements in the ratios with, in particular, a clear improvement in the
inventories of low turnover products, a major reduction in supply chain
costs (transport and warehousing) and major progress in sales forecasts.
Results vary from continent to continent, however, and the Group continues
its efforts to bring all markets into line with these stricter standards.
For purchases of sourced fi nished products, in 2010 the Group introduced
a Group Finished Products Purchasing department, created a Finished
Products Purchasing function in operations and strengthened its dedicated
teams within its SEB Asia subsidiary in Hong Kong. This reorganisation has
helped to strengthen purchasing quality processes for fi nished products
by guaranteeing technical and methodological assistance for Group teams
with suppliers. At the same time, it demonstrates the Group’s desire to
integrate suppliers upstream in the product development process in order
to foster greater fl uidity in creating products. Through this approach, the
Group was able to obtain a more concentrated panel of approved fi nished
product suppliers, which, at year-end 2011, comprised around 50 companies
representing 78% of purchases made.
The Group’s approved supplier panels consist of carefully selected and tested
companies in terms of both performance (lead times, quality, cost, etc.) and
social and environmental responsibilities (environmental impact, compliance
with Human Rights, etc.).
GROUPE SEB
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