Quote:
Originally Posted by krayzie
Yup! Pretty easy to figure out when all cars of all makes suddenly would have the same tech like push button start or keyless entry, similar drivetrain tech and components, etc.
It's basically like Essilor/Luxoticca probably made your glasses regardless of design and branding on the outside.  |
Back when I started in the industry many plants did indeed make their own parts in sub shops on site. That didn't make business sense mostly due to the wages the workers received so those parts or sub assemblies (modules) were farmed out to parts manufacturers. The whole assemblies could be built off site by somebody else (at a much lower cost) and just bolted on at the car plant.
The catch was that the car companies wanted these parts cheaper and cheaper every year. So in order to save costs the parts companies started farming out even smaller sub assemblies. When I started at Siemans in 1990 we made the HVAC motors for about 6 different car brands ranging from Ford to Porsche. At that time we
made the whole motor. We stamped and notched the cases from sheet, cut and machined the shafts, assembled and wound the armature and even made the wiring harness connectors and wires. This still cost too much so gradually over time all those things got farmed out to even smaller manufacturers. By the time it closed up in 1998 it had gone from a huge manufacturing operation to a relatively small assembly plant. Even then it was too costly so the smaller yet places stole the contracts.
Then 2008 came along and kicked the living shit out of the parts industry. Many, many of these smaller places just did not have the diversification to survive and closed up so things went from thousands of suppliers to a couple of hundred. When the recovery came along all that was left was a handful of very large companies with several different divisions making parts for just about every car company. I don't see the industry ever going back to independent suppliers for each company.
The relevance of all that babbling to the conversation here is that it doesn't really matter who or where something is assembled most of the parts come from pretty much the same places anyway. Yes, there is a distinct division between the European and Asian manufacturers but that line is getting blurred more and more every year as each works to break into the other's market.
Oh and of the top twenty parts companies the American owned ones barely placed in the "Also Ran" category since they were the smaller payers and 2008 hit them the hardest.
DAMNIT we dropped 3 places last year!