Given his background as a mechanical engineer, Johannes brings a unique perspective to his role in advising automobile manufacturers: an engineer’s insight into automotive manufacturing processes of today combined with a vision of how automakers can achieve the vehicles of tomorrow. For the past 11 years, he has been advising senior automotive management, with an emphasis on operations improvement, strategy, sourcing, and cost reduction.
The industry faces a full-scale and unprecedented wave of disruption on every level — to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities, automakers will need to completely rethink their business model
Johannes focuses on enabling OEMs to optimize their manufacturing strategy and operations on a global scale. His work with clients has ranged from industrial strategy development and implementation for a German original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and creating the footprint strategy and restructuring for an engine manufacturer, to R&D strategy development and implementation for an automaker and R&D optimization of an Asian automotive supplier.
My goal is to help clients transform themselves and rethink their current and past strategies — ones which might have worked in the past but will not succeed in the future
Looking ahead, he believes the industry faces an unprecedented wave of disruption, one that will present multiple challenges as well as opportunities. Some key trends driving transformation include the changing mobility patterns of consumers who are increasingly less likely to buy cars, electric and connected vehicles, and the faster pace of component obsolescence. “To meet these challenges (and others), automakers will have to up the pace of innovation to a new dimension.”
Besides project work, Johannes has authored a number of key studies, including Value and Cost Migration, FAST 2025, FAST 2030, E-Mobility Blackout, and the Automotive Supplier Best Practice Benchmarking.