Questions relating to current plant capacity, utilisation and a flexibility to expand capacity are not uncommon. How would the supplier react or cope if the supply were doubled or what would the supplier do if the factory burnt down? Such queries necessitate the need to see beyond the immediate requirements. This apart, planning logistics like warehousing facilities and delivery schedules apart from the much touted quality parameters like details of the ISO and QS certification, current PPM and failure rates and improvement programes for the employees and corporate have to be spelt out clearly. 

Also in a study done by Sundaram Brake Linings, the need for exports rose out of uncertain growth in the domestic OEM, domestic after market and nil growth through price increase, competition form existing manufacturers, competition from new MNCs and the stark reality of facing nil or even negative worth. 

In recent times, there has been a consolidation of vehicle manufacturers into a handful of key players and the world's leading OEM parts suppliers too would feel the effect. According to Visteon, the requirements to be a global OE supplier are robust quality of product, process and design, on-time delivery, special packaging requirements, eco-friendliness (recycling laws in Europe), future product and technology offerings, stringent warranty and product liability terms, round the clock customer service, local assembly capability and international presence. 

The general trend is wood-less palletisation and foam in place packaging, parts in a dry ready-to-use condition, without the messy and costly time consuming method of cleaning before use; corrosion protection and easy disposal. 

Adverse effects of corrosion are product appearance, maintenance and operating costs, plant shut down, product contamination, effects of safety and reliability and product liability. The corrosion cost itself was 1998 was estimated at 400 billion US dollars in USA and 80 billion in Germany. Oxygen, moisture, temperature and humidity, salt, chemical vapours and pollutants trigger corrosion. VCI is a new class of corrosion inhibiting compounds whose ingredients have sufficient energy to release molecules from the compound to the air. VCI based products are VCI bag and shroud film, VCI stretch film and VCI shrink film. The supplier not only supplies the product but also offers formulations for ferrous, non-ferrous and multi-metal and the products are easy to recycle. 

Finally, in a paper titled "Logistics Support for Exports", Andrew Birtley, CEO, Geologistics Ltd, brought to light the importance of logistics, which provided valuable insight for small SSIs. For example, the company Geologistics, may maintain a large warehouse with enough space to service several clients, some of whom may have very low volumes of supply, where renting a warehouse would be impractical. 

So what are all the services you get? Warehousing and domestic distribution, overland operations, sea freight operations, airfreight operations, global IT system AS 400 for cargo movement, perishables logistics solutions, one-stop shop provision, project management. 

The trend of the auto component industry is to outsource manufacturing assembly to component suppliers while the OEM imperative is to cut costs, improve customer responsiveness and build to order. Companies like Geo-logistics can handle supply chain management, cutting down effort and worry.