Renault ValladolidFrance - The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance has outlined a new employee structure for executives and senior members in the hope of saving money and readying the business for growth. It has also appointed a new team that will oversee manufacturing, production engineering and supply chain management.

Starting on 1 April 2018, Jose Vicente de Los Mozos and Hideyuki Sakamoto will both become deputy Alliance executive vice presidents of manufacturing and supply chain management. Jun Seki will be Alliance senior vice president of product engineering, while Mark Sutcliffe will be Alliance senior vice president of supply chain management and industrial strategy. Finally, Colin Lawther will be made Alliance regional senior vice president, MFG Transition TQM, PMO, TdC.

The team will be lead by John Martin, who will be given the role of Alliance executive vice president, manufacturing, production engineering and supply chain management. Martin was previously the senior vice president of manufacturing, supply chain and purchasing at Nissan North America.

"We are announcing the Alliance teams who will implement the next stage of convergence. Through incremental revenues, cost savings and cost-avoidance measures they will contribute to double annual synergies to more than €10 billion (US$12.37 billion) by the end of Alliance 2022, up from €5 billion in 2016," commented Carlos Ghosn, chairman and CEO of the Alliance.

The new team could soon be focusing on adapting existing plants to house the production of electrified vehicles. Like many OEMs, the companies in the Alliance have recently outlined statements of intent to invest in the field, and a recent article published on the Financial Times suggests that they are currently spending a significant amount of money on the development solid-state batteries.