After what seems to be a record-long trip through the bankruptcy process, Delphi is back in business and hoping to take advantage of what appears to be a resurgent global auto industry, its CEO declared Wednesday.
But it’s a very different Delphi from the one that went into Chapter 11, stressed the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer Rodney O’Neal.
It has abandoned most of its old-line businesses in order to focus on high-tech lines in the safety, environmental and connectivity fields, while slashing its worldwide workforce in half. And the restructuring isn’t completely over, O’Neal promised.
But that’s in line with what faces the entire auto industry, he noted during a speech at the Automotive News World Congress and during a subsequent interview. “We’re not through,” even if 2010 looks better than last year.
The industry, he warned, is still “too bloated. We need to lose weight.” Despite the fact that General Motors and Chrysler abandoned dozens of assembly plants and component facilities as part of their own bankruptcies, O’Neal pointed out that global automotive production capacity is still around 86 million, even through sales, last year, were closer to 50 million.
“We, as an industry, have the opportunity to right-size,” he insisted, “as long as we do it now.”
Delphi’s own downsizing was a phenomenally complicated and “painful” process, O’Neal admitted, dragging on, in part, because the goal was to find a consensual solution, rather than simply getting the courts to order up a plan. Some of the sharpest cuts occurred in the U.S., where thousands of jobs were cut and remaining workers took huge reductions in pay and benefits.
In the end, Delphi sold off most of its old-line operations, some going back to General Motors, which actually created Delphi when it spun off many of its own component operations.
O’Neal said it required “furious execution,” and the ability to stay focused on his own “North star” to stay on track turning Delphi into the company it needed to be, post-bankruptcy. By emphasizing technology, he added, it’s in a much better position to command a premium for its products.
There’s “an insatiable demand for more and more” connectivity, he concluded, while the push for not only greener, more fuel efficient vehicles, but safer products, as well, will keep Delphi’s engineers and plants busy.