Since the early 1990s, Scania has improved its efficiency by five percent a year. “Now we must sharpen our efforts,” says Anders Nielsen, Head of Production and Logistics.

Where and how is Scania investing in increased capacity?
“The investments will take place over the next few years and mainly at our existing cab, engine, gearbox and axle production units in Sweden. These units are still a very important hub in Scania’s operations.
“The investments will start to be noticeable in the second half of 2011. They consist of a combination of continued improvements in our production working methods plus some new machinery. But we don’t need to build any new production units. We can achieve a capacity of 150,000 vehicles within the same plant area. In other words, this will involve comparatively small investments, though with a large impact and high cost effectiveness.”

Scania’s production units in Sweden are located far from future growth markets, for example in Asia and the Middle East. Is this a problem?
“Not at all, we have built regional product centres in strategic locations around the world to move closer to customers. The idea behind these centres is that final vehicle assembly should occur as close to the customer as possible, even though most vehicle components come from our advanced production units in Europe and South America. Today we have regional product centres in Russia, South Africa, Dubai, Malaysia, Taiwan and South Korea.”

How will Scania be able to boost production with an unchanged number of employees?
 “By building further on our leadership model, in which we involve all employees in bringing about continuous improvements. This continuous effort − the Scania Production System (SPS) − is a powerful instrument for increasing productivity and an important element in our success. During the 2008-2009 crisis, we also placed greater emphasis on further training of our employees in these working methods. This provides a very good foundation for the future.”

What are your goals for production efficiency?
“Since the early 1990s, we have improved efficiency by five percent a year, which is very good. But we will have to sharpen our efforts to successfully expand to 150,000 vehicles with unchanged staffing by the next cyclical peak. We are working towards improving our efficiency from about eight vehicles per production employee per year today to 15 during the next peak.”

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