In order to bring its manufacturing operations more in line with consumer demand, General Motors has announced that it will greatly reduce the number of its truck-plant suppliers, a new report finds.
GM currently uses about 400 truck suppliers, but the automaker’s production schedule no longer requires that many suppliers. GM has yet to decide on how many suppliers it needs, but is working on a target figure.
However, GM purchasing chief Bo Andersson made it sound pretty clear that GM might be eying a 50 percent reduction in truck suppliers. “Where we have four suppliers, we will go to two; where we have two, we will go to one,” he told Automotive News. “If we used to build 7,500 trucks a day and we are now building 3,750, we need to adjust.â€
The final decision will come down to geographic location, “best price, quality, delivery, technology and best landed cost.”
