Monday, February 9, 2009

Behind The Scenes Of The Auto Industry


The news just hit the wires! GM is in talks with Delphi to purchase some of their manufacturing plants. Most people are not aware that Delphi was part of GM until it was spun off as a separate company in 1999.

GM obtained a bridge loan in December to help it survive thru March! Cash is very tight! Why would they be talking about purchasing assets of another company? The answer is that any interruption by their part suppliers could bring the assembly lines to a complete stop. That would have drastic implications to sales that are already down by substantial margins.

GM is trying to hedge their bets! They want insurance that they will have the critical parts for the vehicles that they manufacture. There are thousands of parts in each vehicle that they manufacture. Most plants are set up on a Just In Time system where the parts arrive just as they need to be assembled into the car.

The bottom line is that the car business is a complex web of manufacturers not just the major auto companies. Suppliers supply most of the parts that are used in today's cars. So, any interruptions to the parts supplied would bring the auto makers to their knees!

Many of the companies that supply the auto industry have been burned by the recession and the substantial decrease in the sales of cars. Some of those companies are in just as bad a shape financially as the big three auto manufacturers.

2 comments:

  1. Peter, they all go hand in hand. It is good to know. They are trying to do things that help them stay in business. It is to bad that they spun it off in 1999. Now they have to get it back. Thank you for the good information. Thank you also for visiting our blog. Since you use blogger for doing you blog check this blog post out on our blog it will give you a lot of great things to do with blogger. The post name is To learn more tricks to help your blogger blog. It helped us, see if it will help you as well. We love learning more about cars. Thank you for the great information. Have a good day.
    Dan and Deanna "Marketing Unscrambled"

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  2. Dan U Deanna,

    Thank you for visiting my blog! I appreciate your comments greatly! Thanks for the information on the blogging tricks.

    Pete

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