Two Carmakers and Their Suppliers

Abstract

Somewhere in a car's development there is always a part that does not quite fit. A bracket is a millimetre off. A seal wears faster than the specification predicted. A component that was cheap to make in the design is expensive to make at volume. The engineers at the supplier usually see it first, because they are the ones making it. What happens next is the whole subject of this chapter. In one kind of relationship, the supplier's engineer picks up the phone to the carmaker's engineer, they talk it through, and the design changes before the problem reaches a customer. In another, the supplier says nothing, because raising a problem is likely to be heard as an excuse, or as an opening for the carmaker to demand a lower price, and because the contract will be put out to bid again next year anyway. The part goes into production as it is, and the problem surfaces later, at a greater cost, in someone else's budget.