Mercedes teams to streamline engineering; Automaker adds experts by function to balance car program managers.(News)

Automotive News Europe,  September, 2005  

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Byline: Jens Meiners

Mercedes-Benz has implemented a new product development structure meant to boost quality and reduce costs by standardizing components.

Instead of vehicle program managers developing components separately, six cross-functional teams will handle shared research and development areas such as powertrains.

In some ways, the move resembles the r&d and engineering structure at Mercedes before 1994, analysts said. At that time, the general development teams were much more powerful than the program management teams responsible for specific vehicles.

...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.