For those of you in attendance at our Annual Conference dinner on Wednesday evening (June 8), I think you would have to agree that the presentation by Bob Lutz was both outstanding as well as hugely entertaining. The challenges that he faced in turning around General Motors, the obstacles that he had to overcome in revamping a product line to make it both relevant and attractive makes for a very interesting story. Following his presentation, many of the attendees took advantage of the opportunity to have Bob sign his new book "Car Guys vs. Bean Counters, the Battle for the Soul of American Business." The book is an excellent read and will truly be appreciated by all in our industry. If you did not get a copy, let us know.

What I found most fascinating was that it was not an issue of having the design and development capabilities to produce good products.  Rather, it was in removing the barriers and achieving the focus of getting everybody established on the realization that product was king and that producing the best product possible, as defined by what the customer wanted, while also balancing financial and budgetary considerations, was perhaps the greatest hurdle he had to overcome.

As automotive suppliers we have long understood that it is not just the product being shipped to the assembly facility that defines who we are and how we are measured. It truly is much more about how we respond to engineering and purchasing, how easy are we to work with, how we respond with productivity ideas and alternative material solutions when commodity prices rise. How proactive are we in sharing and developing new technologies to make our OEM products safer, lighter and more cost-effective? How do we respond to challenges when they arise and how responsive are we to these challenges.

Mark Hogan eloquently touched on this issue in his presentation covering a supplier's response to adversity. Whether it be in immediately rebuilding a plant destroyed by a tornado or by fire or in dealing with the earthquake and tsunami that affected the Japanese OEMs, the question always is how responsive are we, how capable are we in dealing with adversity and how rapidly can we motivate and mobilize the forces necessary to bring solutions to problems. First and foremost that's really what we are as suppliers, problem solvers.

This truly was and is the legend of Bob Lutz. How to move, mobilize and motivate the team to get everyone moving in the same direction to provide interiors that surprise and delight, exteriors that evoke excitement and desire and to build vehicles that meet consumer's expectations in every aspect.

I wanted to take a moment to extend my sincere and heartfelt thanks to all of those who attended our annual conference at Caesars Windsor, including conference participants as well as the exhibitors and sponsors. Your wonderful support and participation at this event turned it into an outstanding conference.
I was particularly encouraged by the overall sense of capability and vibrancy that we were able to present as a group of Canadian automotive suppliers. Whether it was the newly minted Industry Minister, the Hon. Christian Paradis, MEDT Minister Sandra Pupatello, GM's John Calabrese, Chrysler's Scott Gaberding or Sig Huber, Toyota's Jeff Makarewicz or other OEMs that walked around the exhibition floor, they were impressed with the vibrancy, capability and the degree of integration of the Canadian supply base with governments and university research functionality. The Volkswagen R&D contingent from Germany and the incoming Trade Mission delegation from Italy also commented very positively on the strong capability of the Canadian supply base.

I hope that you might agree that some of the new things that we tried at the conference such as the introduction of our new "Lead, Reach and Connect" publication, the conference binder, the "Open Mic" Forum along with some of our traditional touches such as entertaining automotive ads made this a better conference this year. However, as always, we know that we can make improvements and there are always things that can be done better to make the product more attractive. In reality we are no different than GM, we are striving to put a product on the street that meets your expectations. Therefore, I invite you, if you have ideas or suggestions as to what we could do to improve our conference and make it better, please feel free to let me know and provide us with your feedback.

Finally as suppliers, I'm confident that we can continue to do what we do best and that is to respond to adversity. Whether it be the rising Canadian dollar, rising commodity prices or Canada's declining share of NAFTA production, we can achieve the innovation and productivity that we require to continue to be successful. Let us learn from all of the information that we heard at the annual conference.

Truly, let us find the ways to capture opportunity in this revitalized automotive sector.

Steve Rodgers