Renault’s capacity for permanent innovation is hinged on:

• R&D
  
• Organization:
  - Engineering centers, as illustrated by the Technocentre;
  - Design centers.   

Technocentre

The nerve centre of Renault’s vehicle design operations is the ultramodern Technocentre facility, which houses a workforce of 12,000 at a 150-hectare site 30 kilometers outside Paris.

Sharp focus on skills and technologies

The Technocentre site brings together all vehicle development personnel:

• all vehicle design functions, from body designers to environment engineers;
• around 1,500 suppliers and engineering service providers

The site provides up-to-the-minute resources:

• digital modeling and simulation systems: 1:1 3D viewing rooms, Ultimate driving simulator, etc.;
• non-destructive test equipment (ultrasound, NMR, scanning electron microscope, tribology systems, etc.).

Architecture for innovation
Eight leading architects took part in designing the Technocentre, a unique facility that takes adaptability and organizational versatility to unprecedented heights.

The interior is designed for flexibility and adaptability, with office configurations that can expand and contract to accommodate shifting needs and changing team sizes as the project proceeds.

The Technocentre has three main buildings: 

• The Advance Precinct building houses preliminary design teams. This is where the genetic make-up of the new vehicle takes shape, involving personnel from Product Planning (responsible for drawing up initial vehicle specifications), Corporate Design and R&D.
  
• The Hive building, at the heart of the Technocentre, houses 5,000 people working on new vehicle development. For each project, a dedicated platform is set up, forming a vertical slice through the building from top to bottom, with four subsections, handling exterior, interior, underbody and engine compartment. In each subsection there are people from all relevant functions, bringing in all relevant skills. This matrix project organization facilitates permanent interchange, for substantial time savings. 
  
• The vehicle prototype centre, one of the key features of the Technocentre, has two main missions:
  - making prototypes for validating the new vehicles themselves;
  - validating the production processes for making the new vehicles.  

Rueil-Malmaison powertrain engineering hub

Renault powertrains are designed at Rueil-Malmaison, on the outskirts of Paris. The powertrain (engine plus gearbox) is obviously of crucial importance to the new vehicle, and will be one of the main criteria behind a customer’s purchase decision.

There are around a hundred possible combinations of Renault engines and gearboxes, a very broad spectrum covering the full range of customer expectations across all vehicle models.

Powertrain engineering teams are responsible for ensuring that powertrains meet two requirements:

• conventional criteria: acceleration, fuel consumption, gearshift smoothness, response, etc.;
• regulatory criteria and society’s growing demands for better air quality, lower pollutant emissions, and prevention of global warming.
      

Engineering centers

Renault’s vehicle development endeavors are also supported by technical centers responsible for vehicle validation work.

Aubevoye Technical Center

The Aubevoye Technical Center has been testing all Renault prototypes and volume-production vehicles since 1982. Through a consistent investment program totaling €165 million since the centre was set up, Aubevoye has become a key link in Renault’s development and innovation chain. To fulfill its mission of ensuring that the prototypes made at the Technocentre will live up to customers’ expectations, the Aubevoye Center has exceptional facilities:

• 40km of test tracks covering all manner of road surfaces, enabling Renault experts to reproduce the full spectrum of driving conditions (motorway, city, mountain, etc.);
• sophisticated testbenches and digital simulation systems.  

The day-to-day work of the thousand-strong workforce at Renault Aubevoye involves testing vehicles on three main counts:

• reliability and service life;
• comfort and drivability;
• performance (noise, consumption, etc.).  

Lardy Technical Center

The Lardy Technical Center, built in 1951, tests new powertrains and other vehicle subsystems. Its main specialty is digital and bench testing, which is faster and less expensive than road testing. Lardy personnel perform two main tests:

• subsystem tests, on isolated subsystems from the new vehicle (front or rear axle subsystem, engine cylinder head, etc.);
• full system tests, on complete engine, gearbox or vehicle prototypes.  

Specifically, these tests can involve three main configurations:

• tests on powertrain subsystems and components;
• tests on full powertrains (engine plus gearbox);
• tests on vehicle chassis, to examine vehicle endurance under high mileage and poor road conditions (engine cooling, exhaust system, suspensions, etc.).

Like the Aubevoye Center, Lardy also tests vehicle body subsystems for endurance to harsh weather conditions. The Lardy Center is also responsible for performing all crash tests on Renault vehicles (over 500 every year).

Rueil Malmaison Powertrain Prototype Center (CRPM)

Renault’s Powertrain Prototype Center (CRPM) makes prototypes of Renault engines and gearboxes. Engine assembly by hand is a highly specialized task requiring jeweler's precision to a tenth or even a hundredth of a millimeter. Assembled prototypes are first tested under no-load conditions on a special bench to check basic operation, then, if there are no problems, forwarded to the Lardy centre for in-depth testing. The CRPM is also responsible for building “development mules”, full-scale vehicles on which powertrains will be tested at Lardy. Another of CRPM’s functions is to dismantle prototypes so that engineers can carry out a detailed examination of all component parts after testing.

International outreach for design centers

The appearance of a new car inevitably shapes the customer’s first impressions, and will exercise a major influence over the customer’s purchase decision. An international workforce of 430 people (of 20 different nationalities) at Renault’s Corporate Design Department takes on the crucially important missions of designing attractive products, developing a distinctive visual identity, and strengthening Renault’s brand image.

Renault also runs international design offices pursuing three main goals:

• develop creativity;
• stimulate innovation;
• support the Renault Group’s international development.  

The design hub at the Guyancourt Technocentre thus has six satellite centers, in Paris, Barcelona, Sao Paulo, Bucarest, Mumbai and Kiheung (South Korea).

The idea is to diversify sources of creativity with the following purposes:

• input ideas from rich and varied cultural environments;
• detect emerging trends;
• integrate certain local specificities.

Focus on Renault Design Barcelona

The Barcelona design centre, opened in 1999, employs 15 persons in an environment that is renowned for cultural sensitivity and diversity. This team has three main missions:

• putting forward alternatives to design projects under way at other centers;
• providing facilities for designers and modelers to replenish their creative resources, on stays lasting anything from five months to several years;
• coming up with design initiatives that are not connected with ongoing vehicle projects but that could prove valuable in the long-term.  

The Barcelona team interacts permanently with the Technocentre.

Focus on Renault Design Paris

Renault Design Paris opened in December 2000. It was planned as an annex to the Technocentre. The Paris city premises can accommodate around 20 Renault people (designers, modelers and engineers), from the Technocentre or elsewhere.

The centre is split into two sections:

• confidential sector, for centre personnel;
• interface sector (documentation, administration, etc.), facilitating interchange and creativity among people from different design centers.

Focus on Renault Samsung Design

Renault Samsung Design employs around 20 design specialists at a centre in Kiheung, near Seoul. It was opened in 2003 and performs three main functions:

• designing and developing Renault Samsung Motors products; 
• working with other design centers on certain aspects of Renault group products;
• tracking design trends in Asia.