Visteon looks to China for worldwide exports

SHANGHAI -- Visteon Corp's 21 plants in China produce components ranging from audio systems to sun visors. Visteon aims to use those plants not only to supply the domestic market but also to export low-cost parts to its operations worldwide. Robert Pallash, president of the Asia-Pacific customer group, spoke with China Bureau Chief Alysha Webb about exporting from China and developing a local supplier base to source parts for export.What do you export from China?We've got three product lines in China: lighting and electronics, interiors and climate control. We are exporting small trim shoot-and-ship plastic parts for interiors; audio, console clusters and keyless security devices for electronics; and compressors for climate control.Which has the most exports?On a revenue basis, (it is) electronics, but climate control is catching up fast. We have a very significant climate operation in Korea. Korean automotive manufacturers generally are still looking for reasons to base activity in Korea rather than move to China or India. They aren't sourcing second tier outside of Korea. Therefore, there are some great opportunities to export back to Korea.How do your sales in China divide between export and domestic sales? Domestic is still the biggest piece of our business; that's what we came to China for. (But) we are aggressively moving more sourcing activity to the region. Of the regional sourcing activity, 50 percent is probably from China. Do you have trouble finding second-tier suppliers in China?There are three sorts of suppliers: those who will fail, those who are already world-class and those who need some work. The biggest class is those who need work. We still have to devote considerable energy to get them to where we want them to be.We do a very good up-front job of assessing where a supplier is, determining if we want him, if we have a realistic expectation of what it will cost us to get him to the level we want.In what do Chinese suppliers excel?Some of our greatest success so far is on the metals side, on foundry suppliers, aluminum injection. It probably reflects the maturity of that industry in China. Also, (it is) maybe a less high-tech environment. A combination of the two.You may e-mail Alysha Webb at alyshawebb@yahoo.com

Visteon looks to China for worldwide exports

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