Business Services Industry
Pricier Parts Not Behind Continuously-Rising Car Costs.(Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News)
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, August, 2000 by Evanoff, Ted
Aug. 19--If you ever wonder just why cars are so expensive, consider the duties of Alice Miles.
Today, she's a leader at Covisint, a consortium in suburban Detroit trying to connect the global auto industry on the Internet and reduce auto costs.
But for more than two extraordinary decades, she was a purchasing manager at Ford Motor Co.
Every car company has legions of purchasing managers. They shop for and buy the 5,000 or so parts for every vehicle.
Every year, Miles spent months in meetings, negotiating with various manufacturers to trim the cost of auto parts by pennies per piece.
And every year, the price of a car rose.
When Ford hired her in 1977, the typical family sedan sold for about $7,000. Today, the...
Most Recent Business Articles
- Multiple criteria evaluation and optimization of transportation systems
- Multi-criteria analysis procedure for sustainable mobility evaluation in urban areas
- A two-leveled multi-objective symbiotic evolutionary algorithm for the hub and spoke location problem
- Multi-criteria analysis for evaluating the impacts of intelligent speed adaptation
- The development of Taiwan arterial traffic-adaptive signal control system and its field test: a Taiwan experience
Most Recent Business Publications
Most Popular Business Articles
- 7 tips for effective listening: productive listening does not occur naturally. It requires hard work and practice - Back To Basics - effective listening is a crucial skill for internal auditors
- FAS 109: a primer for non-accountants - Financial Accounting Standards Board's "Statement 109: Accounting for Income Taxes"
- LIFO vs. FIFO: a return to the basics
- Too Young to Rent a Car? - 25-years-old the minimum age for car renting - Brief Article
- Design a commission plan that drives sales - Sales Commissions
