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      01-24-2013, 03:00 PM   #323
clarence
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bradleyland View Post
So what happens when they're short on defect engines? Do they simply down-bin competent engines? They'd have to, because current automobile manufacturing strategies don't include stocking warehouses full of engines for no good reason. That means we should see '20i engines on the market that are fully capable of '28i output.
So u're now saying BMW doesn't have a consistent & predictable defect rate. I would say they already have enough statistics on the N20 as it's already in production for over 2 yrs. They know roughly how many units per mth that are considered as defective, everything else being equal. So wht do u think they'll do to those defective units, junk them? If they run out of defective units then they'll have to use good units, but it's only for the low compression version cos the high compression version is built as a U0 right from the start. It bears no extra cost to them as the BOM is the same for the whole N20 family (see the article).

There will be no impact to the supply chain etc. etc. cos, the defect rates are very likely to be lower than demand for the low compression version. It will only become a problem if the defect rates are higher than the demand as u said (unlikely in this case). Also the lead time for the engines are abt 1-1.5 mth (only 2 plants in Europe supplies the world), so they have enough time to plan production allocation.

Do customers really dictate orders? Sometimes they do but sometimes that's not the case. Frequently in the past they had to subsidise certain versions or models in order to fill the production capacity (e.g. F07 in Europe & Asia). They also sometimes do release a batch of cars to the market, with certain incentives to certain importers.

Last edited by clarence; 01-24-2013 at 03:14 PM..
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