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Honda Motor Co. plans to reorganize the structure of its wholly owned research and development unit, Honda R&D Co., to better respond to the surge in the number of vehicles under development and the complexity of technological components for those vehicles.
At present, Honda's R&D centers are organized according by their geographical locations. Starting in April, the units will be reorganized into five centers according to the specific products they seek to develop.
The five entities will be named Automobile Development Center, Motorcycle Development Center, Power Products Development Center, Aero Engine Development Center and Basic Technology Research Center.
Each center will have separate offices for planning, product development, technology development and administration with clearly defined roles.
Furthermore, primary authority to make operational decisions, currently held by the head of each center, will be delegated to the head of each office within each center to achieve an autonomous operational structure through which each office can make more decisions.
Honda says this flat and less-layered organizational structure will allow better communication between the head of the office and each unit and help accelerate decision-making within the organization.
