Investing in future business

Delphi has had its ups and downs since departing from the General Motors umbrella in 1999 as a fully independent publicly traded company, but 2007 may reign as the ultimate watershed year for the supplier.

If the script plays out as planned, Delphi will emerge from Chapter 11 business reorganization this year. The pre- and post-Chapter 11 Delphi will be similar in some regards. For instance, research, development, and engineering funding has consistently hovered in the range of $2.2 billion a year, and that investment has translated to hundreds of new products and technologies being introduced every year.

But the post-Chapter 11 Delphi will emphasize a new way of preparing and planning for the future. “It's kind of a new Delphi in terms of what we're trying to do,” said Andrew Brown Jr., Executive Director and Chief Technologist in the Innovation and Technology Office at Delphi. In late 2006, Delphi began transitioning toward a Product Business Unit (PBU) mind-set. The intent is that a PBU-essentially all the groups needed to design, engineer, manufacture, market, and sell products and technologies-function akin to a “miniature business,” according to Brown. Each of Delphi's 21 PBUs has responsibility for profit and loss as it relates to the entire value chain from product creation to delivery of the goods.