System suppliers: myths and realities

What is a “system supplier”? There seem to be many answers to this question in both OEMs and supplier firms within the automotive industry. In order to enable firms to distinguish and better utilise these “system suppliers” we propose a framework of the constituents of a system supplier. A qualitative questionnaire survey was sent to 400 world-wide suppliers. Case studies were conducted in one auto OEM, one aircraft OEM and two auto suppliers located in Europe. Four constituents of a system supplier were identified: range of products, delivery, product development responsibility, and experience. The usefulness of suppliers in engineering management would require a clear identification of the different kinds of suppliers. In this classification, we identified mega system suppliers who supply more than one engineering function as opposed to system suppliers who supply a single one. A system supplier framework, summarising their constituent parameters is the final conclusion