HUNGARY BYD Europe’s first supplier conference, held at the BYD Hungary bus and truck plant in Komarom, was attended by around 100 suppliers from 12 EU countries underlining BYD’s commitment to bus manufacturing in Europe.
The delegates also included suppliers to the BYD France bus factory in Beauvais, to the north of Paris.
The event was organised to help integrate into local bus production increased local sourcing, and conference attendees received presentations on BYD’s corporate ambitions, future product plans, the new Skyrail monorail system, global purchasing structure and aftersales policy.
The purchasing managers for both BYD Hungary and BYD France set out their requirements and expectations.
Addressing the Conference, Isbrand Ho, Managing Director of BYD Europe, said: “The theme of our conference is ‘Growing a win/win partnership’ and by that we mean combining BYD’s technology and European R&D capability with the expertise and innovation of our suppliers.
“It takes time to evaluate, test and homologate products with the local components, but in this way we can be more flexible and have shorter delivery times and better quality for our clients.”
Isbrand also presented BYD Europe’s first Supplier Awards to eight outstanding suppliers, including companies from Hungary, Austria, Poland, the UK and the Netherlands.
The Awards were presented on the basis of an analysis of a variety of factors such as price, service, delivery time and product quality.
BYD believes that having two European bus manufacturing plants, one in Komarom and the other at Beauvais, together with its UK bus building capability via its partnership with Alexander Dennis Ltd gives it the capacity to tackle what is an increasingly competitive market for electric buses.
It believes that localised production will have a key role to play in its future success.
