Driving Vision News: Please introduce yourself, and tell us a little about your education and your professional experience.
Kazuo Kawashima: I am a mechanical engineer of Osaka University and I have a master degree from Tsukuba University in Kanto area at 100km at the north of Tokyo.
I started at Nissan R&D in 1981 to do heating tests on engine systems before being transferred in 1993 to body assembly section as manager. Nissan at this time never transferred R&D people to production.
I then was transferred to Mexico to take care of quality at transmission and assembly Mexico plant.
In 2001, I came back to Japan in a quality special project to select the best suppliers following the decision of Carlos Ghosn to define a new supplier strategy
DVN: And one year later, you arrived at Valeo. Could you summarize your best result at Valeo?
K.K.: I was during 6 years Director of Quality at Valeo.
Some data I am proud about.
In 2002, 185ppm customer lines return.
In 2007, 10ppm customer lines return.
This results are obtained from a continuously progress in all the 11 branches of Valeo.
In 2006 and 2007, Valeo won the Superior Quality award for Toyota Europe and last in 2008, Toyota invited Valeo to their global Quality Superior day to share their experience with Toyota management.
