ABSTRACT
Renault Nissan seemed most resistant to the iron-fisted approach spearheaded by Gerard Detourbet; it was because it was completely in line with the one he had already implemented in the Entry program. An approach was known to Renault, while Nissan would slowly discover its radical nature over the course of this project. Gerard Detourbet presented the approach to Nissan staff during the crisis meeting of June, 2012: Top-down cost objectives fixed to ensure the profitability of the project based on an aggressive selling-price strategy for the target markets, Design-to-cost strategy imposed on suppliers for all components, which could affect functional and technical specifications in the same way as scheduling and Weekly reporting on cost management within the Alliance A-Segment Development Unit (2ASDU) team, and of course regular reporting to the Alliance board. The choice of compact decision-making processes within 2ASDU dramatically reduced developmental inertia, thus allowing much more diverse and wide-ranging exploration without incurring scheduling or quality risks.
