My comments from a personal perspective. My careerinvolved dealing with annual, multi-million dollar contracts with the bigthree corporate purchasing, as well as other industries. I engaged inthis for over 30 years and the bottom line was always the same. Theautomotive industry is very tough and hard core, basically it's "my way orthe highway”. There were countless "quality programs" under variousnames over the years involving supplier input, endless meetings, but it wasreally about control & manipulation. This forced some suppliers tofall in line with pricing demands and those suppliers would accept pricingterms and contracts, then internally, find ways to cut costs in order to make aprofit. This worked to a point, but as evidenced with recalls for faulty parts,some go too far. I blame the autocompanies for these outcomes due tho their management styles. The absolute worst was General Motors. Theunnecessary waste over the years could have been averted had they learned tobetter listen to their suppliers. Chrysler was next, but this was before Fiatwas involved, and Ford was the better of the three and most logical regardingtheir demands and expectations. This, I believe is reflective of their overallprofitability and corporate financial strength. GM and Chrysler needing bailouts while Ford handled finances better, Ibelieve, because of better decisions over the years and corporate culture ofactually using best practices and suppliers who didn’t cut corners due to thepressures imposed. Not to say Ford hasn’thad issues, but the scope is much less than GMC and Chrysler overall. I’m not really surprised to see this Fiatrecall nor the GMC problems.
