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For Nexans, the company's long-term future is particularly dependent on a rigorous industrial policy; the research and development program must be tailored to its markets' needs, and, above all, customers' loyalty must be ensured. The Group has placed these important issues at the core of its strategy.
Control industrial policy
The company's future can only be ensured through a rigorous and controlled industrial policy. In a Group where raw materials account for more than 70% of product prices, optimizing the procurements policy is a priority. Nexans has a globally coordinated organization that handles the procurements of metals, plastics and components,and which has extended its action to include non-production expenditure. It allows the Group to control its costs better, to guarantee supply quality, and to resist better the pressure applied on prices by its suppliers. As far as production processes are concerned, Nexans also works on optimizing quality.
Today, "Program +", the continuous improvement program, is enabling the Group to develop common productivity improvement, maintenance, inventory management and waste reduction measures across 25 plants. The Group is thus able to get the most out of its industrial facilities.
Maintain an ambitious R&D program
The company's future also depends on its ability to develop new products and processes, and to optimize their performance. In these fields, Nexans reorganized its research and, in March 2002, officially inaugurated its brand new nternational research center in Lyon, the NRC. Mainly dedicated to applied research, the NRC works on various cable components: sheath, metal and insulation.
Key goals of our Research strategy are :
- Inventing, new products and new manufacturing processes;
- monitoring emerging technology, protecting our innovations through patents,
- anticipating customer demand: Its goal is to improve existing products in terms of cost and technical performance.
To this end, the NRC focuses more specifically on advanced research in the areas of polymers and plastic optical fiber. Specialized by product line and key technology, the Group's ten competence centers, located in Europe and the United States, are responsible for Nexans' technological development. It is their job to transform the results of applied research into new products or new production processes, in close cooperation with our customers' teams. The main programs underway include: plastic optical fiber research and development, wires and cables for windmills,superconductor wires and cables, innovative energy cables for high-voltage power lines...
Meeting customer demand also means innovating faster while constantly striving to reduce the lead-time between a product's development phase and its release on the market. In 2002, the Group developed powerful computer simulation tools that save time in the development phase by reducing the number of tests required.
In 2005, Nexans registered 57 patents, and devoted slightly more than 54 million euros to Research and Development.
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