Post by: King Siu, Communications Coordinator, PMAC

Is supplier development important? Dan Georgescu, Global Purchasing, Ford Motor Company of Canada, certainly thinks so. In his afternoon session, Dan discussed how supplier development could:

• Improve total cost reduction
• Improve quality
• Accelerate technological innovation
• Support sustainability
• Accelerate new product development

By employing supplier development strategies, Ford Motor Company has improved the quality of their cars, and now Ford’s newest vehicles have fewer problems than any other manufacturer, according to an article in The Detroit News, July 21, 2009.

Dan revealed that Ford found that by integrating suppliers into design processes they were able to accelerate technological innovation. Suppliers can be inserted at any or all points in the process from conception to build, test and pilot, whatever best suits the situation.

Dell, Dan revealed, managed to accelerate new product development by integrating their suppliers’ right in their plants.

“When we launch a new product, our suppliers’s engineers are right in our plants. If a customer has a problem, we can fix it in real time.”  - Michael Dell, CEO, Dell

Supplier development is certainly a worthwhile endeavour that will reap benefits for any organization that takes the time to thoroughly plan and execute the strategy.

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