> Cost was the No. 1 concern - generally, if you were the low bidder, you won - and when mistakes were made the supplier was fired This was a legacy of Lopez w

> Cost was the No. 1 concern - generally, if you were the low bidder, you won - and when mistakes were made the supplier was fired This was a legacy of Lopez when he was the chief buyer at GM and later VW. Most companies followed that style of squeezing your supplier's nuts as tight as possible (then clamping a visegrip onto them). The NUMMI venture with Toyota had potential, but I think GM flubbed it continuously as the managers didn't really want to change GM's culture as much as needed to be done in order to save the company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI Direct link to the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/business/07quality.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/business/07quality.html?pa... Disclaimer: I used to be an engineer at GM.