The Automotive Industry Affects Many

The twentieth century produced millions of great inventions. Computers and the Internet are definitely at the top of the list, but so are cars. The whole car industry provides millions and millions of jobs. Not just the assembly plants. When people think about the car industry, that is usually the first thing that comes to mind, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. There is so many other jobs involved and affected by the automotive industry. Not to mention the jobs affected by people in the automotive field, such as the local fast food outlet.

In order to build a car you first need to build the components. But before you can manufacture the components, you need to build the automotive stamping dies that will stamp out the parts. But, even before that, the car and all of the individual parts have to designed.

This chain starts with the heads of the car companies. They decide to build a car. They get a general concept of what they want and pass this information on to their engineers. The engineers design the overall look of the car, then dissect it into smaller parts. Each part then has to be designed and blueprints drawn up. After the blueprints are approved, the heads decide how many of this particular model they want to build.

This information is then sent out to the suppliers, the metal stamping companies, for one. The metal stamping companies bid on the job, based on the number of parts required. The metal stamping company has to buy the die needed to stamp the parts, so the bid has to include this cost. Most models run for 5 years, so this cost can be amortized over this 5 year period, helping the company decide how much they have to charge per part. The stamping company does not make any money on the parts during the first year. They will not realize any profit until the cost of the die is recovered.