Chrysler 2014 Annual Report Download - page 41

2014 | ANNUAL REPORT 39
Continue convergence of platforms. We intend to continue to rationalize our vehicle architectures and standardize
components, where practicable, to more efficiently deliver the range of products we believe necessary to increase
sales volumes and profitability in each of the regions in which we operate. We seek to optimize the number of global
vehicle architectures based on the range of flexibility of each architecture while ensuring that the products at each
end of the range are not negatively impacted, taking into account unique brand attributes and market requirements.
We believe that continued architectural convergence within these guidelines will facilitate speed to market, quality
improvement and manufacturing flexibility allowing us to maximize product functionality and differentiation and
to meet diversified market and customer needs. Over the course of the period covered by our Business Plan, we
intend to reduce the number of architectures in our mass market brands by approximately 25.0 percent.
Continue focus on cost efficiencies. An important part of our Business Plan is our continued commitment to
maintain cost efficiencies necessary to compete as a global automaker in the regions we operate. We intend to
continue to leverage our increased combined annual purchasing power to drive savings. Further, our efforts on
powertrain and engine research are intended to achieve the greatest cost-to-environmental impact return, with a
focus on new global engine families and an increase in use of the 8 and 9-speed transmissions to drive increased
efficiency and performance and refinement. We also plan to continue our efforts to extend WCM principles into all
of our production facilities and benchmark our efforts across all facilities around the world, which is supported by
FCA US’s January 2014 legally binding memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with the UAW. We believe that the
continued extension of our WCM principles will lead to further meaningful progress to eliminate waste of all types
in the manufacturing process, which will improve worker efficiency, productivity, safety and vehicle quality. Finally,
we intend to drive growth in our components and production systems businesses by designing and producing
innovative systems and components for the automotive sector and innovative automation products, each of which
will help us focus on cost efficiencies in the manufacturing of our vehicles.
Continue to enhance our margins and strengthen our capital structure. Through the product and manufacturing
initiatives described above, we also expect to improve our profitability. We believe our product development and
repositioning of our vehicle offerings, along with increasing the number of vehicles manufactured on standardized
global platforms will provide an opportunity for us to improve our margins. We are also committed to improving our
capital position so we are able to continue to invest in our business throughout economic cycles. We believe we are
taking material steps toward achieving investment grade metrics and that we have substantial liquidity to undertake
our operations and implement our Business Plan. The proposed capital raising actions, along with our anticipated
refinancing of certain FCA US debt, which will give us the ability to more fully manage our cash resources globally,
will allow us to further improve our liquidity and optimize our capital structure. Furthermore, we intend to reduce
our outstanding indebtedness, which will provide us with greater financial flexibility and enhance earnings and
cash flow through reducing our interest burden. Our goal is to achieve a positive net industrial cash balance by the
completion of our Business Plan. In light of this, and to further strengthen and support the Group’s capital structure,
we completed significant capital transactions in December 2014 and we have announced our intent to and have
announced our intent to execute certain transactions in connection with our plan to separate Ferrari from FCA.
We believe that these improvements in our capital position will enable us to reduce substantially the liquidity we
need to maintain to operate our businesses, including through any reasonably likely cyclical downturns.