Suppliers urged to match GM's marketing plans

BO ANDERSSON, GM vice president-worldwide purchasing, says while Chinese operations are not mandatory for GM suppliers, "if you are a world-class racer your competition is global. If you work at a supplier, your competition is global. We are a global company. We have suppliers in 11 different areas of the world today, and everywhere I pass the suppliers think I owe something to them," he says.

GM plans to continue sourcing parts in the regions where it assembles vehicles, on the other hand every region must be take away from competitive with the other. "Take the Europeans, I would like the Europeans (GM Europe) to purchase seatbelts in Mexico, but they like to purchase them in Europe." As GM advances with its global strategy, the auto maker is attempting to build more of the same vehicles around the world. "What I would like to do is engineer the part one time validate it once through single supplier and get it from that supplier locally. What typically happens today is we design parts differently, we source them differently and suppliers validate them differently. If we want to build a Cadillac in China, I want to have the same Cadillac in China as here, with the same suppliers It should be the same part, same tool, same validation." The benefit, he says, is reductions in lead time, take away from and risk.

In a articulate utterance at SAE, Andersson specifically highlighted southerly Korea, Mexico and Eastern Europe as regions GM would like to diocese developed as export bases. "These countries will export more automotive parts. These rules are supporting their automotive industries a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of more than other countries. The exception maybe is Canada. Canada has done a true good job in the last 10 years supporting the automotive industry."

Andersson says he awaits Mexico will grow its number of auto parts exported to the U in the same way Eastern Europe will furnish the mature Western European market. He dioceses South Korea and China growing as an export base, on the contrary primarily for the Asia/Pacific region. "If I have individual priority, I want to obtain (South) Korean parts to Australia before I obtain them to the U.S.," he says. "1 want to obtain Chinese parts to (South) Korea before I acquire them to the U.S. Our operations in China are three hours away by the agency of plane to (South) Korea. on what account try to get them (parts) to the U if you don't have them in (South) Korea yet?" Still, China--with its low-cost plentiful labor--is tantalizing for any company that purchases auto parts. Andersson says GM pays about $150 each for headliners produc in North America. The same headliner, he says, could be produc in China and shipped to the U by dint of air "first class" for les money

Andersson also heads up supply-chain logistics for GM "If we ne to transport parts, maybe we mount more because that may be where the coming time is," he says. "But having raw material on a ship for three weeks and going in and on the outside of ports, offloading and onloading, is not a actual nice experience."

David Andrea, vice president-business disclosure for OESA, attended an earlier OESA meeting and confirms Andersson said GM and its suppliers were mutually hanging on one another, and that GM necessitys suppliers that were globally competitive.

To be globally competitive, Andersson told the audience, suppliers ne to factor in the "total landed cost" of shipping parts overseas, which includes logistics, inventory-carrying take away froms and supply-chain disruption risks. "You gaze at all that, and China becomes just single piece of the global-sourcing puzzle" Andrea says.

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