Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Plastics News China
  • Rubber & Plastics News
logo-pn-color
Subscribe
  • Login
  • Register
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • End Markets
    • FYI Charts
    • LSR World
    • Multimedia
    • NPE2021
    • K Show
    • Special Reports
    • Top materials of injection molders
      Recycled PET use by product category
      US PET, flexible packaging desintations
      Global fluropolymers additives market: CAGR
    • NPE exhibitors question handling of deposits for canceled trade show
      Exhibitors back NPE cancellation: ‘We couldn't take that risk'
      NPE2021 canceled as in-person event
      NPE reviews its options as pandemic prompts exhibitor to exit
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • What Keeps You Up At Night
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • Videos
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • CEO Issue
    • Best Places to Work
    • Processor of the Year
    • Rising Stars
    • Women Breaking the Mold
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • Heavy Metal
    • One Good Resin
    • BRICS and Plastics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Getting back on the road
      How long will it take for EVs to replace internal combustion engines?
      Watching, and hoping, for progress in 2021
      COVID-19 stories dominate 2020 headlines
    • Kickstart: Best foot forward
      Kickstart: Heading back to the office ... sometime
      Kickstart: 'Have an adventure in life'
      Kickstart: More toys for your collection
    • Heavy Metal: Coronavirus edition, plus the work of working from home
      Don't put off succession planning
      What's a good gift for your cobot? Batteries?
      Here's some big ideas to mull over the holidays
    • Plaskolite wins 3M supplier award
      Green feet: Braskem partners with Dansko on bio-based clogs
      Curbell donates plastic sheet for prosthetics project in Ecuador
      Covestro volunteers build ramp for Ohio veteran
    • There was no choice but canceling NPE still a big deal
      The business case for producer responsibility
      Think divided government stalls plastics legislation? Think again
      ACC, NAM eye economic priorities in Biden presidency
    • Thermoformers: Would you believe a 12 percent gain?
      Just how big is thermoforming in North America?
      Changing names for compounders embracing corporate branding
      Diversity the key to outperforming the market
    • Thermoformers: Would you believe a 12 percent gain?
      The benefits of getting social
      Rising Stars shine bright future on industry
      Getting back on the road
    • Perspective: Plastics manufacturers — a surprising contribution to sustainability
      Plastics industry business owners: Listen to your future workforce
      Perspective: ‘Fake news' of a different sort?
      Perspective: Making products in the USA is good for the planet
    • Mailbag: Additional fees for electric vehicles ‘unfortunate'
      Mailbag: Where's the plastics industry's response to critics?
      Mailbag: Manufacturers struggling to follow COVID-19 safety rules
      Modernizing recycling infrastructure will benefit businesses as well as the environment
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
    • Maintenance can ensure efficient blender operation
      Dosing: Perfect for adding color
      Blending vs dosing: What you need to know
      Going low or high: Comparing volume
    • Colors and custom compounds
      In the laboratory: Compounding solutions
      Recycling content: Resins going ‘green’
      Compounding: Glass and other fillers
    • Dryer maintenance: Don’t err with air
      Dryers: Options for a shop’s process
      Dryer installation: Going central?
      Resins: Hygroscopic or non-hygroscopic
    • Electric injection molding presses: Efficiency is key
      Hydraulic injection molding machines
      Proper maintenance can prevent downtime
      Hybrid injection molding machines
    • Purging Hot runners: Open or closed methods
      Purging extrusion machinery
      Purging extrusion blow molding machines
      Purging: Chemical, abrasive and non-abrasive
    • Controls, special applications boost production, profitability
      Robot maintenance key for smooth operation
      High-speed robots: A rapid way to increase efficiency
      Robots: Every shape and size
    • Maintenance: Key for efficiency
      Shredders: Plastic in pieces
      Safety first for size reduction
      Granulators: The right fit
    • Structural foam molding: Flexibility for processors
      Video: Structural foam molding
    • Mold inventory: How many molds does a shop have?
      Molds: Innovation
      Mold changeover: Saving time and money
      How molds work
    • Labor: Apprenticeships may provide answer
      College training, programs
      Internships: Solving the skills gap in-house
      Lean Six Sigma: Transforming business operation
  • Events
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Ask the Expert
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
    • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Polymer Points Live - February 2021
      Polymer Points Live - January 2021
      Polymer Points Live - December 2020
      Polymer Points Live - October 2020
    • Plastics in Healthcare 2020
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Plastics in Healthcare
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
  • Resin Prices
    • All Resins
    • Commodity TPs
    • High Temp TPs
    • ETPs
    • Thermosets
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
    • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
    • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Historic Thermosets
    • Historic Recycled Plastics
  • Rankings
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Data Store
  • Directory
  • More+
    • Classifieds
    • Digital Edition
    • Newsletters
    • Sponsored Content
    • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Sponsored By Ensign Equipment
      Filling Systems Customized for Any Process or Budget Need
      KraussMaffei
      Sponsored By KraussMaffei
      KraussMaffei Retools in US with investment from Parent Ownership
      Sponsored By Mitsubishi
      Innovative new technology from Mitsubishi Engineering-Plastics Corporation helps reduce emission footprints
      Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Sponsored Content By Canon Virginia, Inc.
      Canon Virginia Inc. brings collaboration to the table
    • KraussMaffei
      Sponsored By KraussMaffei
      KraussMaffei Retools in US with investment from Parent Ownership
    • Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Tailored maintenance for injection molding machines and robots
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Improve maintenance efficiency with e-connect.monitor
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Maximum precision for lowest shot weights
      Sponsored By ENGEL Machinery
      Even more cost effectiveness for small precision parts
    • Shell
      Sponsored By Shell
      Food and Beverage Trends Impacting the Polymer Industry
      Sponsored By Conexiom
      Use Sales Order Automation to free up time for CSRs to focus on customers, not manual entry
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
September 11, 2019 03:28 PM

Auto supplier Faurecia gains momentum with startup strategy

Audrey LaForest
Plastics News Staff
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Print
    Audrey LaForest
    Todd Fletemier, Faurecia's vice president of Midwest technology platform, is responsible for the automotive supplier's regional strategy and innovation development in the startup ecosystem.

    Traverse City, Mich. — For French automotive supplier Faurecia SA, navigating an evolving industry means planning ahead while maintaining enough flexibility to make a sharp turn in the other direction. It's about safely maneuvering around new challenges — some of which you're prepared for and others that shake up your business model.

    But Faurecia isn't driving down this road alone. It is picking up passengers along the way that give the global firm a competitive edge.

    A major part of Faurecia's strategy includes forming synergetic relationships with startups and scooping up companies, big and small, through acquisition.

    Last year, Faurecia acquired French supplier Parrot Automotive, now Parrot Faurecia Automotive SAS, to accelerate the development of vehicle infotainment products. The company is part of Faurecia's Clarion Electronics unit, which was launched in April to focus on cockpit electronics and low-speed advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

    The electronics division was formed as the result of another acquisition by Faurecia: Clarion Co. Ltd., a Japanese manufacturer of car audio, navigation systems and other products. Both acquisitions were driven by Faurecia's "Cockpit of the Future" strategy, which leverages advanced technology and electronics to create customized, predictive and connected experiences inside a vehicle.

    More recently, in July, Faurecia announced a collaboration with tech company Microsoft Corp. to develop connected and personalized technologies using Microsoft's expertise in artificial intelligence, edge-computing and cloud-based services.

    These strategies are evidence of a shifting supply chain in automotive, too, as more manufacturers — automakers included — tap into the high-tech realm where plenty of startups are waiting for investors.

    But it's "easy to fall in love with the tech," said Todd Fletemier, Faurecia's vice president of Midwest technology platform. Companies have to make sure the technology is viable, with a strong leadership team in place.

    "Each of those megatrends, if you will, impacts our business in a different way," he said. "It's making sure that we understand how they're going to impact it to allow us to maintain the core business."

    Plastics News met up with Fletemier at the 2019 CAR Management Briefing Seminars, held Aug. 6-8, to talk about Faurecia's startup strategy and big-picture outlook as an automotive supplier.

    Q: The automotive industry is changing. There's no question about that. As a big, global automotive supplier, what are some of Faurecia's top priorities here?
    Fletemier:
    What we're focusing on is understanding how these changes are going to affect our business, maybe not in three to five years, but within that five- to 15-year window. As these evolve, in the automotive cycle, things are pretty well set for what's going to happen in the next five years, but as the mobility as a service, for example, as that changes and evolves, how will that impact our business? Will it open up new customers? Will our customers want different products? We're trying to understand some of those long-term trends to position the business in the right away.

    Q: Do you have "penciled-in" answers to those questions right now, where you can adjust them and react accordingly?

    Fletemier: Yeah, for some of them, but a lot of it is still early enough that we have ideas, but one of the things that we're trying to do is to validate them. From a business model perspective, one of the things I spoke about yesterday was a path to commercialization. It's one thing to say we're solving a problem. Is it a big enough problem that there can be some level of a business there? And then, what does that look like? And then, like you said, keeping flexible because as things are changing so much, so fast, you've got to be able to pivot, whether you're a $20 billion company or a $2 billion company.

    Q: You're responsible for the advanced development and scouting of new technologies, strategy and innovation development. What are you seeing in the technology startup ecosystem? And what does Faurecia look for in a partner?

    Fletemier: We divide our ecosystem into three pieces. We have our corporate partners like Microsoft, Hella and ZF. We have our acquisitions, those companies, like the recent acquisition of Clarion on the large scale and Parrot on the smaller scale, and then the startup pieces.

    First, it's where in the ecosystem do they fit? You can put the university partners in there as well — where do they fit in there? But the startups are obviously very key. I could spend all of my time just going through startups. But what we've done is said, first, can I have a vision — for me and my team members, whoever is looking at it? Is there some relevance to one of these problems we're trying to solve or one of those strategic pillars? If the answer is yes, then we have that exploratory conversation. And you have to be very careful. It's easy to fall in love with the tech. You can go to any one of these startups — and yeah, that's really cool — but is it really viable, and is the leadership team the right people to take that through to the end? And that's what we're finding to be really key because there's a lot of great idea people. There's a lot of great business people. How do you put them together to make sure they have the leadership to see it through?

    Q: How do you determine whether a startup or a specific technology is worth investing in? There's a lot of risk there, right?

    Fletemier: There's always risk. Ninety percent of startups fail. Anybody, any venture capitalist out there, will report that number pretty hard. Our objective is to beat that number. So, make sure we're making those right investments, but then it's being that engaged partner in their success. Don't just throw money and hope because that's not going to work. Where can we help that startup be successful where they wouldn't be without us? What can we accomplish with that startup that we couldn't accomplish otherwise? Once we have that symbiotic relationship, now you have a pretty good shot at beating 90 percent.

    Q: Automakers are also forming partnerships and investing in startups. How is this shifting the supply chain?

    Fletemier: We call it mobility as a service. So, inside mobility as a service, there's a number of different subsets, but we're studying very closely and watching this because we believe, one, that that's going to change what the automakers want. If we use the analogy of the automakers selling base model vehicles into a rental fleet, will they have a level of vehicle that they sell into a mobility-as-a-service fleet and what will that content be for that different use case?

    We're trying to build with the Cockpit of the Future project — that's one element of it — to scope those products for that market. And then we start to break it down even further with things like nonemergency medical transport. The problem is there are 3 million missed [medical] appointments annually at the cost of $1.2 billion, and it's just the U.S. now. And so as the population ages, it's going to get to be an even bigger number, so what can we do inside of mobility as a service, again, with unique products to solve that? And then, what's the business model to make money at it? Those are the types of things that we're trying to solve.

    Q: What are the big trends or the big topics that you're hearing this year at the CAR Management Briefing Seminars?

    Fletemier: We're hearing a little bit more focus on aging, which was good. I heard [Center for Automotive Research President and CEO] Carla Bailo call it "the silver wave," and every day 10,000 seniors turn age 65. By 2050, 27 percent of the population in the developed world will be over age 65. How do we get mobility? Because we age — we can't stop that — that's not going to change. So, the reasons why people stopped driving are still there. As we get this large population of elderly, what are their unique needs that we can position ourselves for?

    It's good to hear people start to talk about that, and we want to build more of that conversation because we think it's a really, really critical thing. And we talked about CASE (Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electric), there's demographics, and that is going to impact it. With all respect, we talk "millennial, millennial, millennial," and there's that other segment of aging people with huge buying power that we need to focus on.

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    logo-pn-color
    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber & Plastics News
    • Urethanes Technology
    • Plastics News China
    • European Rubber Journal
    • Tire Business
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2021. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • What Keeps You Up At Night
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
        • Polymer Points Live
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • FYI Charts
        • Current FYI
      • LSR World
      • Multimedia
        • Videos
        • Galleries
        • Podcasts
      • NPE2021
      • K Show
      • Special Reports
        • CEO Issue
        • Best Places to Work
        • Processor of the Year
        • Rising Stars
        • Women Breaking the Mold
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • Heavy Metal
      • One Good Resin
      • BRICS and Plastics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Plastics in Healthcare
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
      • Industry Events
      • Livestreams/Webinars
      • Ask the Expert
      • Polymer Points Live
      • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
      • 2020 Caps & Closures Library
      • Plastics in Healthcare Library
      • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
    • Resin Prices
      • All Resins
      • Commodity TPs
        • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temp TPs
        • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
      • ETPs
        • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Thermosets
        • Historic Thermosets
      • Recycled Plastics
        • Historic Recycled Plastics
    • Rankings
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Data Store
    • Directory
    • More+
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified
      • Digital Edition
      • Newsletters
      • Sponsored Content
      • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Processor of the Year submissions