Paul-Henri Matha is a graduated Engineer from Ecole Des Mines, Saint Etienne, France. He has been with Renault for 13 years, first as lighting project leader on the C-Range vehicles (Mégane Scenic), then as chief executive in charge of lighting pre-development and innovation in Guyancourt, Renault’s technical seat in France.
He is now responsible for lighting, seats, safety, and instruments at Dacia in Bucharest, Romania. He is also a member of the VISION congress scientific and organisation committees.
We asked him four questions:
DVN: Was it easy for you, an executive with a French education and background, to take this new responsibility in Romania?
P-H Matha: No, it was quite a challenge. In automotive industry, especially in lighting, we have to study in detail numerous topics simultaneously (styling convergence, perceived quality, electronics, control plan, validation plan). We need to enter into the smallest details, to take time to converge, to do the best product that will look like a jewel.
In Romania, engineers are not used to develop this way. They prefer to develop in one shot, very quickly, without taking the time to enter into specific details. I think this way of thinking is linked to the very fast evolution Romania has had during the last decade.
So my task is to change their way of working if we want to increase the perceived quality of our Dacia headlamp and rear lamp. On the new Logan presented last year, you can see the first step of this evolution.