Robert Bosch, Rodez Plant

We now live in a VUCA world and this means that we need to be highly flexible. Bosch Rodez Plant has several strong advantages : the management of the working time, the management of resource capacity, plant opening, closing and flexibility of deliveries until D-Day.

Our flexibility is proven on a daily basis by our practices:...

We now live in a VUCA world and this means that we need to be highly flexible. Bosch Rodez Plant has several strong advantages : the management of the working time, the management of resource capacity, plant opening, closing and flexibility of deliveries until D-Day.

Our flexibility is proven on a daily basis by our practices: prioritizing key projects, flexibility of working time for both shift members and regular employees. Since 2011, our plant has implemented an integrated management approach of the temporary workers which has been highly benchmarked.

The 2013 agreement, recognized by the visit of the French President, was an example within Bosch and the industrial world in terms of quality of social dialogue as well as the setting up of collective time approach which is unique in France. It was the subject of more than 150 media spin-offs and numerous exchanges with other interested companies.

Our ability to adapt has grown from year to year and we can be proud of the progress we have made. It helped us to improve our industrial performance and is a proof of the Bosch Excellence ... made in Rodez.

Our Rodez Plant has made of its geographical disadvantage a huge competencies strength through becoming a nationally labelled Factory of the Future. This lead to a motto: “Rodez Plant, the connected excellence”.
Thanks to our passionate associates we succeeded to develop an impressive story board: RFID extraordinary implementation all...

Our Rodez Plant has made of its geographical disadvantage a huge competencies strength through becoming a nationally labelled Factory of the Future. This lead to a motto: “Rodez Plant, the connected excellence”.
Thanks to our passionate associates we succeeded to develop an impressive story board: RFID extraordinary implementation all over the internal supply chain, accounting self-cockpit chart on SAP, spindle vibration measurement, the implementation of new i4.0 tools to monitor the ceramic glow plugs line performances.
We launched an Energy Platform software to offer more opportunities to monitor the energy consumption in order to reduce it. We were the first in Bosch France and fast follower in the Bosch Group. Also, we contributed to important debugs.
Our achievements raised a high interest and we received numerous benchamrking requests and participation to fairs and conferences.

The Steering Committee of Rodez Plant realized, early on, that engaging its associates in the achievement of the strategic goals was one of the key milestones in the Journey to Excellence. As a result, a policy deployment approach is implemented in 1997. Since then, thanks to RzP’s commitment to the EFQM, the implementation of the process...

The Steering Committee of Rodez Plant realized, early on, that engaging its associates in the achievement of the strategic goals was one of the key milestones in the Journey to Excellence. As a result, a policy deployment approach is implemented in 1997. Since then, thanks to RzP’s commitment to the EFQM, the implementation of the process management approach and of the value stream organization, it has constantly improved.
Starting 2008, two important yearly events drive the strategy and policy deployment: The Town Hall meeting and the DDO flyers.
The Town Hall meeting is an annual event where the Steering Committee joins together all the associates to communicate on the automotive background, the Bosch Group situation, the results of the previous year and the challenges to come. The Town Hall meeting enables the associates to understand the plant’s vision and their contribution to achieving it. Following the 2017 Town Hall meeting, 89% of the associates understood the strategic challenges, 86% know how they can contribute to the achievement of the strategic goals and 87% are ready to tackle the 2017 challenges.
The DDO flyers constitute an important step in the strategy communication and policy deployment. The flyers have a standardized format that resumes the plant’s strategy and give the department’s objectives and its priorities for theyear to come. The flyers are handed out individually to each associate. The deployment is then followed by the annual global performance dialogue (GPD). 83% of our associates know what is expected of them. Our strategy and policy deployment have been recognized externally as best practice several times: 2015 EEA best practice, recognition by the French Senat, “Aveyron des Champions” Trophy.
Since 2015, to improve further more the strategy and policy deployment, we organize a yearly “Excellence Café” with all our managers during which they brainstorm how they can drive strategy achievement so that every associate feels even more motivated and concerned.

For all our customers, one off the major key performance indicators is Quality. BOSCH is synonym of quality and as our founder said “I prefer to lose money rather than customer trust“. Bosch Rodez invested its efforts in the journey towards Excellence and Quality. Today they have become part of our DNA and are firmly anchored in our daily...

For all our customers, one off the major key performance indicators is Quality. BOSCH is synonym of quality and as our founder said “I prefer to lose money rather than customer trust“. Bosch Rodez invested its efforts in the journey towards Excellence and Quality. Today they have become part of our DNA and are firmly anchored in our daily activities. Perfect quality, from suppliers to the customer, is a pillar of the plant strategy. We widely deploy preventive quality methods (risk analysis, Process-FMEA, Control Plan, SPC, firewall matrix, near incident, coaching audit, systematical lessons learned at project end etc....) to ensure an excellent quality to the customer from the engineering phase to the end of the product life. Our quality is sustainable, under 1 ppm for 0 mileage claims for several years, and is on world class level. In case of customer complaint or near incident into our plant, we use efficient problem solving methods like 8D, Shainin, Six sigma. In 2016 we have been rewarded for the perfect start of production of a new CRI Nozzle generation 9 months earlier than planned with an excellent quality level.
RzP quality experts are recognized in Robert Bosch France and frequently support other BOSCH French organizations (trainings, audits, sharing best practices).
But the most beautiful reward is the pride of our employees to be one of the best DS Bosch plant in the world regarding customer quality, proud of the customer trust and recognitions, proud to have been chosen by the BOSCH Group to represent quality in its vision for its worldwide deployment in 2015.

Following the Kyoto agreements, RzP implemented an approach for reducing energy consumption. Thereafter, starting with 2007, the Bosch Group, announced its environmental commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 15% until 2012 and by 35% until 2020. In 2016, the Bosch Group decided to raise the target to 35% CO2 reduction until 2020. In RzP, a team...

Following the Kyoto agreements, RzP implemented an approach for reducing energy consumption. Thereafter, starting with 2007, the Bosch Group, announced its environmental commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 15% until 2012 and by 35% until 2020. In 2016, the Bosch Group decided to raise the target to 35% CO2 reduction until 2020. In RzP, a team of dedicated people took up the challenge and important results were quickly achieved: new lighting system recognized by the Greenlight Award (the first European award for a French industrial site), the improvement of the energy efficiency of the compressed air production recognized through the “Motor Challenge” award firstly in 2007 and then a second time in 2009. These early efforts, associated to improvements in the buildings insulations and heat recoveries before fan cooler towers, brought us 3 “Energy Savings” Certificates which were then sold for an amount of 60 k€, a real performance for Bosch Rodez and a first in France.
In 2012, the breaking down of one of our boilers provided us with the opportunity to go for a greener alternative to gas: implement a wood boiler, a first in the Bosch Group. The project quickly proved profitable: we reduced our CO2 emission up to 600 t/year (that means -15%). This led to a reduction of 35% in CO2 emission level (target for 2020) and also reduced the energy bill up to 50 % in the 2013-2015 period.
We received the latest recognition for our wood boiler solution during our i4.0 Day from the President of the “Alliance for the industry of Future”. He was impressed by our innovative and green approach which involved a French wood boiler producer and local wood from our region, with Pan European Forest Certification. For such a global ecosystem concept and reducing of environmental footprint, we were labelled, “Smart Factory”. In 2016 we implemented an energy platform: this internal web solution was introduced in Rodez at the same time it was developed in Germany. We are recognized as a fast follower.
Last but not least, RzP is contributing to minimize the external footprint by optimizing our Milk-run tours with lorry for Germany. We actively participated to the drawing up of the Grand Rodez Collectivity local air-climate plan. We also organized the first circular economy meeting on site, with some interesting opportunities. All in all, following our ISO 50001 certification (since 2014) and our EFQM Committed to Sustainability recognition (2014), we prove again and again that we act consistently and effectively towards the reduction of our environmental footprint.

From its beginnings, our plant has known many events that have shaped its organization. For many years our plant had a classical organizational structure that generated a lot of conflicts regarding the targets of different departments. Since 1996, our plant has set up a performance oriented organizational structure of the production areas called...

From its beginnings, our plant has known many events that have shaped its organization. For many years our plant had a classical organizational structure that generated a lot of conflicts regarding the targets of different departments. Since 1996, our plant has set up a performance oriented organizational structure of the production areas called Value Stream Organization that brought a greater target coherence. The Value Stream focuses towards customer, from source to make and deliver (production, product quality, methods and customer logistics). The Value Streams associates are fully identified with their products and have developed a customer responsibility mindset. As for support services (HRL, CTG, TEF), they have also structured themselves accordingly by creating dedicated referees within their teams. They are the first point of contact for Value Stream members. From 2006 onwards, technical partnership contracts are signed each year between the Technical Functions department and the production departments to better identify oneself with his product. Since 2015, this good practice has been extended to Facility Management and Quality department.
In 2007, process mapping, regular self-assessments and inter-processes surveys further enhanced our performance.
Furthermore, we have created Communities of Practices to ensure the standardization of jobs and the exchange of good practices between the different Value Streams (Quality CoP, Supervisors’ CoP, Team leader’s CoP, Assistant’s CoP…)
The results clearly demonstrate our plant’s progress. In 2009, the factory receives the EFQM Award for learning, innovation and continuous improvement. In 2009 and 2010, our organization is also recognized best practice by EFQM evaluators and ISO auditors. We have published a book on improving processes, we have shared our practices through articles and participation in conferences and lectures In 2015, the EFQM assessors recognized it again as a good practice.
Customer orientation, agility, speed, common purpose are the key words of this organization.