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16 February 2019 | AutoData MANUFACTURERS » SCANIA J anuary 28, 2019, was a historic day for Scania’s factory in Sao Bernardo do Campo, born in 1962. The apex of a modernization process started in 2016 happe- ned there, costing more than R$ 2 billion – in all, the manufacturer’s investment program until 2020 in Brazil reaches R$ 2.6 billion. That day, the production of the NTG family’s new trucks started in serial way, which fully replaces the traditional PGR trucks in one fell swoop. To get an idea of what that means, the PGRs (launched in 2007) accounted for more than 113 thousand of 264 thousand trucks that Scania has sold since its arrival to Brazil, in 1957. The process is unique because the NTGs arrived in Europe in 2017, but theywere launched gradually in amuch slower and smoother process. In Brazil, itwill happen in only seven weeks, from the beginning of that January 28, until the pace of the assembly line in the ABC region is com- pletely reestablished compared to the PGR. And that’s it. The first models manufactured are the ones with the simplest configurations, like the 4x2, with a gradual advance of the productive complexity until reaching, for example, the 10x4 trucks along the seven weeks. “Industrially speaking, wewent fromamature andwell- -known product to something completely new, with at least six hundred brand new parts per unit. We changed everything, from suppliers development to production processes”, attests Christopher Podgorski, president of Scania LatinAmerica, in an exclusive interview toAutoData. By Marcos Rozen, from Sao Bernardo do Campo A FRESH RESTART With the start of production of the NTG trucks, Scania’s factory in the ABC region of Sao Paulo has lived the apex of a modernization process that lasted two years MANUFACTURERS » SCANIA