Localization projects ongoing: Mitsuba will look over 9 potential suppliers

On June 17, Mitsuba's Supplier Day was organized. Such events in the form of a videoconference have become a familiar part of establishing business with new customers.

Japanese company Mitsuba specializes in the production of wipers. In Russia, supplier represented by a plant in Volzhsk, the Republic of Mari El. The maximum production capacity is designed for 500 thousand products per year, two shifts production. On a fairly compact plant area of 8,000 square meters there are 30 employees manufacturing electric auto components (mainly front wipers) for the following customers: Renault, Nissan, AVTOVAZ, Toyota, PSA Group and others.

The videoconference was attended by 12 representatives from 9 suppliers from Samara, Tula, Vladimir, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk regions, Udmurtia, as well as the Republic of Belarus.

The program of the event consisted of a general part in a video conference format, including greetings from Strategy Manager at the Department of Strategy and Management – APO RUS Alexander Kuznetsov, General director of Cluster AI Andrey Kraynov, a presentation of Mitsuba and its plans for localization in Russia, online B2B negotiations.

Alexander Kuznetsov noted the relevance of further deepening localization and highlighted several important points for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance in this activity, namely, ensuring the security of supply chains both in Russia and abroad, as well as further developing the competencies of Tier-2 suppliers .

Mitsuba company represented by the head of the production control department Alexey Desyatnikov and localization specialist Aliya Vidina, noted that they had been studying suppliers from Russia for a long time and analyzed about 200 companies. Nevertheless, the majority of Russian companies, as well as global suppliers of automotive components localized in Russia, do not meet the high requirements of Mitsuba and often lose in price to competitors from abroad. Therefore, from a potential supplier competing with existing ones, higher efficiency is expected in all areas, including compliance with the principle of "one window" when interacting with a customer.

During the meeting, Mitsuba employees held 9 online business meetings with suppliers. In the final part, Mitsuba representatives noted the high organizational level of the event and the technical readiness of a number of companies participating in the negotiations. At this stage, the localization study will be continued in the framework of current and new projects with all participating suppliers.