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EXCELLENTLEADERSHIPANDSTRATEGYDEPLOYMENTATROBERTBOSCH(MALAYSIA)SDNBHD

ABOUTTHECOMPANY

The Bosch brand is synonymous with quality and innovation. The company enhances quality of life in communities with products and services that are both innovative and beneficial. From humble beginnings, the Bosch Group today is a leading global supplier of technology and services. In Malaysia since 1923, Bosch is currently active in the areas of Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology. The company has three manufacturing arms in Penang providing car multimedia systems, power tools and automotive steering.

Bosch Car Multimedia (CM) is a business division within the Mobility Solutions business sector of the Bosch Group, which develops smart integration solutions for entertainment, navigation, telematics and driver assistance functions, focusing always on driver safety, driving convenience and reducing energy consumption.

The CM plant in Penang, Robert Bosch (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (RBMA) is one the eight pioneering companies which started operation in the Bayan Lepas Free Industrial Zone back in 1972. RBMA develops and manufactures navigation and infotainment systems, integrated head units, car radios, as well as Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) products.

Above: Product category

Automotive Navigationand Infotainment Systems

Professional Systems

Manufacturing Services

Development of smart solutions for the integration of entertainment, navigation, telemactis and driver assistance functions in the Original Equipment business.

Development of devices and systems for commercial vehicles: audio, video and navigation systems for coaches and trucks as well as connectivity solutions.

Manufacture of complex electronic control units and modules for a wide variety of different applications in the automotive and consumer electronics industries.

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Business Excellence Best PracticesStrategy for Organisational Sustainability

“Invented for life is more than a motto. It is reflected in everything we do,” said Harald Dirsch, RBMA’s commercial managing director. RBMA develops cost-effective, innovative products according to global demands and standards - a recipe that contributes to its significant growth and success in Malaysia. “We practice Bosch’s corporate guidelines – Sauber, Sicher and Sparsam, which means Clean, Safe and Cost-Effective in English,” he added.

RBMA’s vision is “to be the first choice in developing and manufacturing car multimedia and electronic products with sustainable profitability”. Together with all Bosch business sectors, the company’s objective is to produce products that spark enthusiasm, improve quality of life and help conserve natural resources. To achieve this, Bosch focuses on customers, shaping change and striving for excellence. Bosch maintains its strength as a global company by building on its seven corporate values:

• Future and result focus• Responsibility and sustainability• Initiative and determination• Openness and trust• Fairness• Reliability, credibility, legality• Diversity

Changes in business landscape and consumer preference, as well as rapid technological development continue to test even the strongest organizations. Businesses need to adapt to volatility and uncertainty as a way of life. Despite facing a variety of challenges, RBMA continues to grow and remains competitive.

This article focuses on RBMA’s excellent and impactful business practices in leadership and planning. Both are managed under a structured policy deployment process, translating corporate strategy into measurable objectives.

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THESUCCESSSTORYOFAGLOBALPLAYER

Since 1972, RBMA has sustained and successfully overcome many challenges. Despite the dynamic market environment of CM, RBMA continues to inspire its customers with holistic innovative solutions that provide benefits, which includes hardware, software and data as well as connected services. RBMA adheres to a set of core values that enable the company to navigate into unfamiliar territories and grow at a measured pace. Today, RBMA products are well known for their innovative strength, efficiency, reliability, and quality.

In terms of financial and market aspect, RBMA is in a competitive position. From 2009 to 2014, RBMA achieved an average of about 41% increase in sales turnover year-on-year, largely due to strong strategic sales across Europe, North America and Asia. In 2013, while most companies were affected by the global sales slowdown, RBMA’s operations continued to expand with an upward momentum, by improving on resources, competencies and business operation processes. To win market shares, RBMA in alignment with CM has a targeted growth rate of more than 10% year on year. In 2014, RBMA’s 1200 employees generated global sales of more than RM 1.6 billion (EUR 372 million).

In 2012 U.S. Multimedia Quality and Satisfaction Study conducted by JD Power and Associates, ranked CM amongst the highest customer service satisfaction. Bosch was also ranked number one in Thailand’s GPS Navigation Benchmark study. In 2013, Bosch infotainment system produced for Chevrolet MyLink System was awarded the Best-of-CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, U.S.A. Another CM product, NissanConnect was named winner of Telematics Detroit Industry Newcomer Award 2013/2014. This has truly reflected CM’s vision of driving convenience and customers’ first choice.

Excellent business practice is evident in the nucleus of RBMA – its employees. Improvement trends are recorded in employee satisfaction, involvement, and training.

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Business Excellence Best PracticesStrategy for Organisational Sustainability

RBMA’s excellent performance is also apparent in its winning of prestigious accolades, such as the Jaguar Land Rover Quality Award (2011), Volvo Cars Quality Excellence Award (2012), FIAT Chrysler Perfect Quality Award (2012), MPC-ICC Regional and National level awards (2007 – 2013), and the Proton-MPC BEx Top 2 (2012). RBMA’s contribution to Penang was also recognized by MIDA through the ‘8 Samurai Award’. EXCELLENCEINLEADERSHIPWITHCOLLECTIVEVISION,MISSIONANDVALUES

Vision and mission play critical roles in communicating the company’s objectives to stakeholders, strategy development, and in developing measurable goals. These roles are interdependent and require strong leadership to ensure they are effectively communicated so that the whole organization is moving along its vision and mission. Bosch’s distinct corporate culture, based on common foundations, is the precondition for business success and the ability to evolve in the international market environment.

RBMA has developed an excellent leadership system with a clear vision, mission and values that unite the organization and provide consistency in decisions. These values are communicated through various methods such as printed materials (pamphlets, posters, etc), communication sessions (townhall, fireside chats (Kamingespraech), etc), and the company’s own Bosch Global Network (Intranet). Senior management, with input and participation from various levels within the organization, have developed a corporate strategic plan in concurrence with RBMA’s vision and mission, customer requirements and business condition.

Participation of senior management at various levels is effectively galvanized as early as the goal-setting stage. RBMA has clear stages of strategic planning and goal-setting activities. “Goal-setting is managed under a structured policy deployment process. Beginning the fourth quarter of each year, senior management staff from all CM locations worldwide gather at the International Management Meeting (IMM) forum to discuss key directions of CM based on market trends and customers’ requirements,” said Lothar Mergili, RBMA’s technical managing director. Amongst topic discussed includes Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and CM Target Chart (TC). RBMA has to define their own BSC and TC and cascade it down to define each department’s BSC and TC together

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with the employees. The overall RBMA and departmental BSC and TC will be reviewed in the Annual Goal Setting Workshop at the beginning of the year’s first quarter, in order to facilitate cross-functional discussions and buy off.

To communicate and enhance the understanding of CM’s direction and drive effective management of resources and focus, a ‘CM Brochure’ is established, consisting of CM Market, Vision, Mission and focus goals and targets. The leaders at every level hold a ‘Be One CM’ workshop to discuss and internalize the contents of the CM Brochure with their team. Company’s goals and directions are also communicated to employees through plant-wide communication channels.

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Business Excellence Best PracticesStrategy for Organisational Sustainability

What makes planning works at RBMA is the existence of a clear flow regarding how strategy and goals are communicated from the top management to the entire organization for effective results, as well as strong leadership in promoting and embracing the business philosophy, vision, mission and core values. RBMA also demonstrates strong participation at various levels in the development of the business plan and policy deployment. Company goals and direction from the top management are effectively communicated to employees at all levels.

To develop desired company culture, RBMA has initiated many impactful change management and improvement programs. For instance, RBMA has implemented the ‘Single Digit PPM (Parts Per Million) Program’ to improve product quality and customer satisfaction; Plant Remodelling Program to improve operations value stream, capacity and standard; and 5S Revitalization Program to improve work environment and performance through deviation identification against standards, determine root causes and eliminate waste.

Training Within Industry (TWI) implementation aims to establish a leadership coaching culture, increase operators’ knowledge in processes and knowhow and improve operations goals. Overall StepUp Program on the other hand aims to establish shop floor leadership excellence training. All these programs have been effectively conducted and have served as best practices at RBMA to overcome any gaps between the current and desired state.

In sustaining effective leadership, RBMA’s management uses practical and effective tools to evaluate and improve personal leadership and involvement in fulfilling the organizational vision, mission and values. For example, the Leader Continuous Improvement Process Self-Assessment Tool (CIP SAT) is used to determine the maturity level of Continuous Improvement Processes (CIP) in a manager’s area of responsibility and to identify further optimization opportunities. Meanwhile, Bosch Production System Maturity Assessment allows the leadership to set the System CIP goals with employees so as to drive shop floor improvement.

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Above: Associate survey and follow up process

Certification to various standards and legal requirements is another excellent initiative of RBMA that ensures good governance. Bosch practices its policies strictly to ensure compliance and corporate governance, in order to achieve results with honesty, fairness in doing business and to contribute to the community and the environment. In general, RBMA is compliant to:

• Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Policy • ISO 9001 (Quality Management System) • TS 16949 (Quality Management System) • ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System) • Bosch Central Directives, which contain regulations of Corporate Departments/Offices for certain subjects

According to Harald Dirsch, in line with Bosch’s value of ‘Responsibility’, the company is committed to acting in accordance with the interests of society. Product and services that provide safety to the people, the economic use of resources, and environmental sustainability are set as priorities. RBMA also embarks on prodigious corporate social responsibility initiatives, including the CO2 reduction program and activities focused on giving back to society. These initiatives are structured, systematically evaluated, continuously improved, and aligned with Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH, a charitable foundation.

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Business Excellence Best PracticesStrategy for Organisational Sustainability

FAILINGTOPLANISPLANNINGTOFAIL

Planning is another important criterion in an excellent business model, which focuses mainly on strategy development and strategy deployment. RBMA demonstrates the accomplishment of outstanding strategic planning through a very structured policy deployment process, which sets the right focus and goals for the company. The deployment involves translating high-level objectives into smaller operational pieces depending on annual improvement priorities and target improvements.

When asked about his views on planning, Lothar Mergili humorously responded, “Germans generally like to plan. That is why in most German firms, the planning process tends to be long and detail-oriented. Plans are not implemented until they have been reviewed thoroughly.”

Organizing and conducting policy deployment at RMBA involves making organizational commitments and setting goals, as well as assigning or approving the roles of individuals, the allocation of resources, and the decision making and review process. Effective Policy deployment ensures all levels of an organization are in alignment with the business goals and objectives for sustainable business excellence. The strategy deployment process is conducted through stages of activities.

RBMA also practices the System CIP approach as a tool to focus on the individual value streams and to improve standards in terms of materials flow and information flow. Based on the strategies and goals (such as on Business Requirements, RBMA BSC and TC) set for the year, the Focus Topics are identified and the System CIP Projects are derived with the target conditions.

The Focus Topics will define and deploy the System CIP action plans required in the operations area. The System CIP Projects status and achievements will be regularly reviewed in the monthly BPS Steering Committee Meeting among the key stakeholders and plant management. Once the System CIP Project is completed, it will be transferred into the Point CIP phase to focus on stabilizing the performance versus the standards. Resource planning to support the accomplishment of the actions plans is conducted at several stages.

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Above: RBMA Policy Deployment Board

In essence, the best practice at RBMA that make the planning work are the precise input for planning and the establishment of short and long-term plans and goals based on the benchmarked business and customer requirements. Besides, organization-wide participation in the planning process and cascading plans to all levels, strategy deployment demonstrating specific ownership of plans and individual goals, strategy deployment establishing resource management, and strategy deployment delineating the implementation of the plan and involving regular monitoring of the plan have been well implemented at RBMA.

The strategy deployment process at RBMA has effectively translated organizational strategy into measurable objectives throughout the various functions and levels of the organization. Effective strategy deployment at RBMA is strengthened with a shared corporate culture that offers orientation, reinforces cohesiveness, and creates identification.

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Business Excellence Best PracticesStrategy for Organisational Sustainability

FUTUREDIRECTION

When asked about the way forward, enhancing quality of life with solutions that are both innovative and beneficial remains RBMA’s focus and priority. Smart integration of people and technology to fulfil the needs of drivers and passenger’s safety and user-friendliness is continuously emphasize. The uniqueness of Bosch Global’s company structure allows entrepreneurial freedom and financial independence for RBMA to continue investing into research, development and patent applications worldwide.