About Scania

Within this section, you will be able to get a glance of Scania Purchasing and how we work in order to be the best performing purchasing organization in the world. For more general information about Scania, you are encouraged to visit our Group Website.

Being a link in Scania’s Production System

The reason why our customers choose Scania is the emphasis they place on quality, an area in which Scania traditionally sets the standard among heavy vehicle manufacturers. To ensure that our products will maintain a high, uniform quality, we have standardised and documented our work process. This standardised and documented way of work form the basis for a “normal situation”. By challenging the “normal situation”, we can identify waste and work with continuous improvements.

A modular product program and standardised working methods are two of the basic principles in the Scania Production System (SPS). This means that our components are the same, regardless where production takes place, and the same things applies to the philosophies, principles and priorities that govern our working methods.

By continuously remedying deviations, we create a new and better standardised working method. We discover deviations, learn to understand them and seek new solutions. Each deviation should lead to an improvement. 

Scania’s production philosophy is based on a common way of thinking usually called “management by means”. Our leadership focuses on working methods, and the result will come as a consequence of doing the right things right.

SPS is based on never manufacturing more than the next production step requires. When the following production stage signals a need, the preceding ones begin to produce. This eliminates waste in the form of both overproduction and waiting time.

This customer order-controlled production system places strict demands on all links in the value chain, including both external and internal suppliers, to always deliver the right products with the right quality at the right time.

What makes SPS unique is that it is in operation throughout the company’s global production organisation in eight different countries of Europe and Latin America and that it affects most of Scania’s 52,000 employees.

In many ways, SPS today puts us on the absolute cutting edge in terms of production methods and leadership. We are now introducing leadership that focuses on our working methods throughout the Scania organisation around the world, not just in our production network.

In recent years, Scania has been working continuously to integrate key suppliers more closely into its operations. These suppliers are now joining the development and production process at an earlier stage and will participate in operations in the same way as Scania’s own units, including SPS.