Volkswagen Group is restructuring leadership of its procurement functions to better cope with supply chain disruption.
Audi’s procurement and IT boss, Dirk Grosse-Loheide, is promoted to head of group procurement. He also will take over from Murat Aksel as procurement chief for the VW passenger cars brand.
Aksel will join the management board of VW’s MAN Truck & Bus subsidiary, taking over from Stefan Gramse, who will move to a group function at VW, the automaker said in a statement on Tuesday.
At Audi, Große-Loheide will continue to oversee procurement functions and IT until his successor is appointed.
VW Group CEO Oliver Blume said Große-Loheide’s task will be to further stabilize the group’s supply chains in close collaboration with suppliers.
One of the key tasks assigned to Aksel at MAN will be to further stabilize the company’s supply chains, which continue to be strained during the continuing ramp-up of truck production for heavy commercial vehicles, Blume added.
Aksel, a former BMW executive, has been VW’s chief purchasing officer since January 2021.
The changes will come into effect on Jan. 1, VW said.
Like most automakers, VW has suffered delivery bottlenecks and production stops because of shortages of semiconductors and other components.
Earlier this month, VW brand chief Thomas Schaefer said the company’s Wolfsburg plant is building well under 400,000 cars a year, less than half its capacity, because of “flat-out chaos” in the supply chain.
Reuters contributed to this report
