Renault Group details Design-to-Cost strategy for cost-effective innovation
Renault Group's Design-to-Cost process integrates engineering, purchasing, and costing from the earliest design phases to ensure vehicles are attractive, innovative, and profitable.
<2 years
divided by 3
millions of euros
What Happened
Design-to-Cost is a process that optimizes development and production costs from the earliest design phases through the entire project. It aims to balance performance, quality, and cost while meeting budget targets defined in the business plan. At Renault Group, this approach begins even before the first prototype is built, involving upstream market research, product positioning, and customer expectations to define a clear technical and economic trajectory.
“The starting point is not what it costs, but what it will need to cost.”
The USFTs (Upstream Strategy Functional Teams) are central to Renault's Design-to-Cost ecosystem. These cross-functional teams bring together Engineering, Purchasing, and Costing specialists who work continuously, analyzing competitors, monitoring technological developments, and defining component strategies. By involving teams early, the company can modify components before tooling or production lines are set, reducing costs and enabling breakthroughs through co-development with suppliers.
Why this matters
This approach helps Renault launch competitive vehicles by managing costs upfront, enabling innovation while maintaining profitability in a rapidly evolving market.
Terms in This Story
- USFT
- Upstream Strategy Functional Team: a cross-functional group of Engineering, Purchasing, and Costing teams working to optimize technical and economic performance.
- Kaizen
- A Japanese term meaning 'continuous improvement' through small, incremental changes.
- Costing
- The function responsible for estimating and analyzing production and development costs.
- Cross Car Line
- A department that oversees cross-functional standardisation strategies to maximize component reuse across vehicle projects.
Summarised from the linked release; details can be imperfect — always verify against the original source.