Auto suppliers feel carmakers' pain

By Sharon Silke Carty, USA TODAY Wed May 18, 6:31 AM ET

Automotive supplier Collins & Aikman filed for bankruptcy-court protection Tuesday, evidence that financial troubles at the automakers are having a rapid and dramatic effect on the companies that make car parts. A May 5 decision by Standard & Poor's to downgrade General Motors and Ford Motor to junk bond status had little near-term impact on the carmakers, but automotive suppliers are suddenly facing a cash crunch that could put their very existence at risk.

Collins & Aikman, for one, said last week that the move trimmed its available credit line by $70 million. By seeking bankruptcy court protection, the supplier was able to secure a $300 million debtor-in-possession loan from J.P. Morgan.

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Auto parts makers relations with GM worsen-study

From Reuters.com - No Spin. No Agenda. Just the Facts. As they happen.

Auto parts makers relations with GM worsen-study

Tue May 31, 2005 06:50 AM ET

By David Bailey

CHICAGO, May 31 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp.'s (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) relationships with its U.S. parts suppliers, never particularly cordial, have worsened, a study released Tuesday has found.

Suppliers gave GM, struggling to stem market share losses, lower marks for timely and candid talks with parts makers than last year, according to the annual study by consulting firm Planning Perspectives Inc.

"General Motors' supplier working relationships are now clearly and unequivocally the worst they have ever been," study author John Henke told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"The level of trust that suppliers have of General Motors is at the lowest we have seen in 15 years of doing this," said Henke, chief executive of Planning Perspectives.

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The demise of Michigan's wire harness industry

From: The Detroit News

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Driven Abroad

The demise of Michigan's wire harness industry is a global tale of economic survival and the endless quest for cheap labor

One Michigan company. One auto part. Four countries. Thousands of lives forever changed.;

By Ron French / The Detroit News

Huang Wei's future and Deb Coverdill's past are linked by a bundle of color-coded wires.

Coverdill had seen hundreds of co-workers laid off and machinery shipped overseas from her automotive wire harness plant in Michigan. In October, Coverdill's plant was for sale and her job in jeopardy.

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Production Mind

Hey how's your product quality??

How bout your production??

I am mystified by the deliniation between quality and production.

Tell me why we inspect quality into a part instead of manufacturing it into the part.


What is up with that..........

The Cost of Quality

From: Quality Digest

Quality Management
Cost of Quality Revisited
by A. Blanton Godfrey

Perhaps it is time we rethought
the cost of quality concept.

Nearly 50 years ago, a new concept was introduced into quality management: the cost of quality. For many years, this concept has been used to identify opportunities for significant savings. Increasingly, though, leading quality professionals argue that the original ideas have outlived their usefulness and it is time we rethought the whole idea.

Two basic ideas have been used for these many decades. The first is the idea of an optimum quality level, which is the point when total quality costs are minimized. The second is the characterization of quality costs into four parts: prevention, appraisal, internal failure and external failure.

Cost of Quality Article


This is an illusive measure. What are the tangible aspects of the cost of quality??

Many feel it is the defect rate that comes out the end of the process. This is a true statement however can the tangable cost be driven upstream?

At what point is the defect introduced into the process. I think many recordable defects are introduced by the system as well as the people. The do not pass it on concept may be one way to detect and remove the added defect. What can we do to bring the culture to the level of in process inspection??

The employee driven kiazan can also assist in reduction of handling and systemic defects.

When will we get to this point??

What are your thoughts?

Ford Citizenship

From: Ford Motor Company

Suppliers

Suppliers are an integral part of our business, and our success is interdependent with theirs. We rely on more than 2,000 production suppliers to provide many of the parts that are assembled into Ford vehicles. Another 9,000 suppliers provide a wide range of nonproduction goods and services, from production equipment to computers to advertising.



Environmental Management and Human Rights

It is important that our suppliers share our commitment to corporate citizenship. In 2003, we concluded a four-year joint effort aimed at extending the ISO 14001 environmental management standard throughout our supply base. Nearly all of Ford’s Q1 production suppliers worldwide have now achieved ISO 14001 certification. We also extended to our suppliers the Code of Basic Working Conditions that was adopted in 2003.

These standards for environmental management and human rights are an integral part of revised terms and conditions for production suppliers that became effective in January 2004 and are employed throughout our global supply base. Similar requirements will be integrated into the updated terms and conditions (currently being drafted) for nonproduction suppliers.

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Visteon Honors Detroit Scholar

From: theautochannel

Visteon Honors Detroit Scholar

VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP, Mich., April 26 -- Jennifer C. Salis, a senior at Detroit's Davis Aerospace Technical High School, was named Visteon Corporation's first Visteon Scholar at the National Association of Black Automotive Suppliers' (NABAS) 17th Annual Scholarship Awards Banquet on April 25 at Cobo Center in Detroit.



Paul Radkoski, Visteon's vice president, North American materials management, presented the $20,000 scholarship to Salis.

"We are pleased to contribute to this year's NABAS Scholarship Fund and to announce the first recipient of the Visteon Scholar Award," said Radkoski. "Jennifer reflects the next generation of automotive leaders; she is focused, creative and dedicated to pursuing excellence."

Business is bleak near shuttered GM factory

By Tom Lambert | Lansing State Journal

Up until about three weeks ago, Gus Caliacatsos couldn't wait to get to work for another 18-hour day, serving customers at his Michigan Avenue bar.

But on May 6, his world came crashing down. That's when his business, Gus's Bar, lost 95 percent of its customer base when General Motors Corp. shut down its Lansing Car Assembly plant on Verlinden Avenue.

"Now when I come in here, I get depressed," said Caliacatsos, who has been across from the plant since 1982. "I don't know how I am going to pay the bills. I am going to try to make it work, but I am only going to give it a couple of months."



Another one bites the dust. Is our industry heading south and east......

What is next....

Lansing Journal

Chrysler Plant

Here is where our industry is heading.

Autoline Detroit (The Local Pulse on Our Industry Awarded)

From Autoline Detroit Web Page

"Blue Sky Productions Takes First and Second Place Honors in International Wheel Awards Competition

LIVONIA, MI -- Blue Sky Productions has earned first-place honors in the Detroit Press Club Foundation’s 2005 International Wheel Awards competition for its television documentary “Bibendum Challenge”.

The Blue Sky crew of John McElroy, Dan Dancer, Peter Hickman, Carmen Erickson and Michael Purcell earned first place in the Television-News Program/ Documentary category for the program, which appeared last fall on Speed Channel.

Autoline Detroit, North America’s only weekly automotive television-news program, earned second place honors in the same category for Detroit Public Television and Speed Channel.

The International Wheel award was established by the 40-year-old press club foundation as an extension of its charter to promote excellence in journalism, and in recognition of the global significance of Detroit and Michigan in the automotive industry. The awards were presented during recent ceremonies at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Mich.

"We are extremely proud of this recognition by our peers,” said McElroy, editorial director of Blue Sky Productions, which produces Autoline Detroit and the Bibendum Challenge special presentation. “The crew is dedicated to producing quality content and programming that’s thought provoking and relevant to our large national viewing audience.”

Find More Supplier and OEM articles information and streaming web content at Autoline Detoit

Welcome

This Blog is a Supplier outlet.

I want to focus on the tough world of automotive tier suppliers