Last February 26th, Sidenor met the managers of Renault’s Special Steel Technical Development and Purchase Department in order to present its ongoing strategic lines and investments. The main objective of the meeting was to demonstrate Sidenor’s commitment to investing in installations which modernise its production processes in the face of future new requirements from the various sectors to which it delivers its steel, highlighting the environmental approach in the company’s future development, and to show Sidenor’s wide range of innovative solutions aiming at improving the economic profitability of the car business, while maintaining the technical level required in current steel specifications.
A technical presentation was made, with a focus on examples of how Renault may significantly save costs by applying the MECAMAX technology in products where mechanization costs have a high impact. Likewise, the possibility to reduce Renault’s thermal treatment costs thanks to developments such as NANOCEM, a steel which would allow for very significant savings in hardening processes, was highlighted.
Both Renault and Sidenor are aware of the importance of product innovation in the car sector, even more in the light of the uncertainty in this sector, which is facing a strong disruptive process due to the emergence of electrification. In this sense, the next meetings will focus on research plans aiming at improving the technical and environmental costs of car components.
Innovation is one of Sidenor’s best allies, as well as one of the strategic axes of our activity. It has turned us into a group of reference in the steel sector. Innovation drives our continuous improvement and has led us not only to become pioneers in our products and services, but also to increase our efficiency, competitiveness, safety and environmental friendliness.
About the Technocentre
The Technocentre, at Guyancourt in the Yvelines region, just outside Paris, is the leading automotive R&D center in Europe. Its activity is design and development of vehicles, engines, and gearboxes for Groupe Renault and the Alliance. Since it was established in 1998, the Technocentre has been central to the development of Groupe Renault’s future vehicles.
The center is on the scale of a small city, with 11,000 employees representing the full spectrum of professions responsible for developing the cars, engines and gearboxes for Groupe Renault and the Alliance. That means design, after-sales, research, engineering, manufacturing, quality, and more. The site’s architectural layout echoes the three main phases of vehicle development: preliminary studies, project development and prototype production.