Bartholomew, D

Abstract: Suppliers to the automotive industry are under tremendous pressure to sell their components at lower cost. This is also occurring in industries other than automotive. This article cites a number of situations of cost vs. quality and discusses how different companies have or may have dealt with cost cost-cutting pressures. Poor quality is costing the consumer and the supplier billions of dollars.The debated Ford/Firestone tire situation is one such highly publicized issue. However, there are many more that have resulted in additional billions of dollars of cost. Some companies such as Caterpillar cringe at the unilateral demands stated by the automotive industry for their suppliers to cut their selling price by some percentage. Caterpillar uses a team approach with their suppliers to find ways to truly cut costs. Toyota ranks very high in customer satisfaction. Their apporach to cost vs. qualtiy is discussed in the article.

Keywords: Automotive industry,Casting, Cost, Quality.