VOL. 56 ISSUE 8 FEBRUARY 26, 2019 P37
Honda Reorganizes R&D
H
onda's motorcycle R&D department—Honda
R&D Co., Ltd—will be absorbed into the prima-
ry automotive division, Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
In a statement issued by Honda CEO Takahiro
Hachigo, he said, "Since 2014, production, de-
velopment and purchasing divisions have been
sharing one workplace at Kumamoto Factory and
developing products in collaboration.
"In the meantime, if we look around our market
environment, competition versus manufacturers
from China and India, in addition to competition
against Japanese, European and U.S. competitors,
is further intensifying. Moreover, we must continue
complying with environmental regulations, which
are getting more stringent in every country. We also
have to undertake more initiatives to expand into
new markets for the future. There is no question
that our business environment is changing more
dramatically than ever.
"In light of such circumstances, we need to fur-
ther increase the unity of our motorcycle business
as a whole and increase the speed of our opera-
tions, so that we can enhance the competitive
strength of our motorcycle business.
"To this end, in order to advance our existing
product development system and enable more co-
ordination and collaboration among sales, produc-
tion, development and purchasing divisions beyond
their boundaries, we will consolidate our Motor-
cycle Operations and Motorcycle R&D Center into
one organization.
"Under this new organizational structure, we will
fully integrate the entire process involving new mod-
els—from the planning and conceptual phase through
development, initial production and mass-production—
and secure our global competitiveness by increasing
not only product appeal, but also cost competitive-
ness, quality and the speed of development." CN
Your new CBR1000RR
will now be developed
as part of Honda's main
automotive division.
