Bridgestone a GM ‘Supplier of the Year’

Every year for the almost two decades General Motors has acknowledged its best global automotive suppliers at its Supplier of the Year awards. These awards recognise superior performance in four key areas, namely innovative quality, superior quality, outstanding launch support and competitive total enterprise cost. On twelve prior occasions Bridgestone Corporation has been bestowed an award, and at the 19th annual awards ceremony on March 10 thirteen proved to be a lucky number for the tyre maker – Takashi Urano, vice president and senior officer of Bridgestone Corporation, accepted the tyre maker’s thirteenth award on behalf of the company.

“To be given this award more than a dozen times is a great honour,” said Gary Garfield, CEO and president, Bridgestone Americas. “Making sure our company provides world-class quality products to our customers is of the upmost importance and we will continue to provide GM with the high quality tyres and services it has come to expect from Bridgestone Corporation.”

The Bridgestone Group supplies tyres to GM plants worldwide, including to facilities in Europe, South America, India, Asia, Australia and South Africa. All four GM brands in its US home market – Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac – are supplied by Bridgestone.

General Motor’s Supplier of the Year award began as a global programme in 1992, with winners selected by a global team of executives from purchasing, engineering, manufacturing and logistics. “We believe the Supplier of the Year Award is a top honour in the industry,” commented Bob Socia, GM vice-president for Global Purchasing and Supply Chain. “These suppliers are a critical part of our effort to design, build and sell the world’s best vehicles.” This year, General Motors acknowledged 82 suppliers for their outstanding performance throughout 2010 out of the 20,000 suppliers eligible for the award.