Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2004

Abstract

Global automotive supply chains comprise of an intricate network of suppliers, brokers, manufacturers and customers. Within the industry structure and sometimes within automotive product development programs these firms could be competitors, customers, suppliers or partners at the same time. Firms are revisiting their non-core businesses and outsourcing to a set of strategic suppliers that help them be competitive. The players in the supply chain rarely cater to only one customer and hence it is important to develop a secure network when you know that your customers and suppliers will also be interacting with your competition. Developing this secure network involves operational matters like logistics, legal issues, reward systems, understanding cultures and most importantly creating, nurturing and developing long-term trust. It is clear that alliances based on trust create more value and are important both for product development and supply chain management of the automotive value chain. These concepts are difficult to embrace and implement within the same culture and industry structure mostly due to social dilemma (a version of prisoners dilemma) of creating and building trust for the collective good. When variables such as geography, skill-set, culture, norms, political and social bias are added to this already complex dilemma we have a situation we find in today's automotive industry: attempting to source non-commodity items in the product development phase to relatively new suppliers who are sometimes located in foreign 'low-cost' countries. This paper deals with the investigation of incentives required at various levels in an organization that will allow inter and intra firm pragmatic collaboration within the global automotive product development industry.

Keywords

product development

Rights

© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.

Department/Center

Design & Innovation

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