Striving for best-in-class industrial performance
A comprehensive approach to excellence
Our 360° lean manufacturing approach, the FORVIA Excellence System (FES), is designed to help us achieve best-in-class industrial performance. It integrates the best processes and practices from Faurecia and HELLA, incorporating digitalization and our sustainability roadmap. Rolled out to FORVIA sites since mid-2023, FES plays a key role in achieving both our financial POWER25 and scope 1 and 2 carbon neutrality targets for 2025. This is our way to execute and improve. It serves as the foundation for delivering safety, performance and total customer satisfaction.
Digital transformation; industrial application
Sustainable competitiveness
Olivier Lefebvre
Executive Vice President, Group Industrial Operations and Clean Mobility, FORVIA
Allenjoie: a blueprint for Industry 4.0
Inaugurated in 2023, the Allenjoie platform includes two major sites and is FORVIA’s technological flagship in France. One plant produces seating components at an unparalleled degree of digitization and automation, making it one of our most advanced facilities worldwide. The other is the first mass production site of vehicle hydrogen storage systems in Europe, and will support the evolution in transport from ultra-low to zero emissions.
Both plants are industry-leading examples of sustainable production, meeting the strictest environmental standards. The platform’s rooftop solar arrays, biomass-fired boilers, heater recovery and rainwater sanitation systems have earned it BREEAM Excellent certification — the first awarded to an industrial site in France.
Various collaborations to ignite innovation inside the Group
Partnering with schools and institutions
Since 2022, we’ve participated in four EU-funded programs exploring sustainable composite manufacturing and circular approaches for automotive electronics. Our R&D teams engage with French engineering schools on polymers and mechatronics. We have also partnered with the University of California (Berkeley), the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore), and Tongji University (China) for cutting-edge sensor development. In 2023, we started a four-year collaboration with CentraleSupélec (France) focusing on the automotive applications of artificial intelligence for sensor fusion.
Collaborate with industrial leaders and promising start-ups
We collaborate with a diverse range of players, from global industrial groups to promising start-ups with disruptive ideas identified through our scout network. In Berlin, we operate The Drivery, a mobility innovation hub with over 800 members, including 140 start-ups, and expanded this concept to China in 2023. These innovation ecosystems are crucial to meet scope 3 targets.
Activate technological players
We also strategically partner with key tech players – for example, Accenture for scaling our digital transformation, Palantir for data analysis, and Microsoft for our AI transformation. Data-based innovations leveraging AI facilitate collaboration between designers, engineers and customers, accelerating product development. Our digital transformation boosts our competitiveness and our capacity for innovation.
Using AI to accelerate innovation
FORVIA harnesses data and AI across its value chain, with a dedicated team and powerful tools in a company-wide program. This initiative improves decision-making and execution across R&D, Operations, and support functions. Our Palantir Foundry platform is a key asset in this domain. AI improves quality control, safety and the driving experience, with features such as hands-free trunk access and child-presence detection in unattended vehicles.
In sustainable materials engineering, AI develops predictive algorithms for adaptive formulations, ensuring stability and compliance of end products despite variations in raw materials. FORVIA also embraces generative AI solutions such as GitHub Copilot for software coding, critical in the continuous improvement of operational efficiency and product portfolio enrichment.
