sahi Glass Co., the giant Japanese auto glass producer, had already opened production plants in Kentucky, Ohio and Mexico over the past 10 years. But when it came time to locate a research and development facility, the company chose Ypsilanti Township, Mich. AGC America, the company's U.S. research subsidiary, had considered familiar Kentucky and Ohio as R&D sites. Ultimately, however, Michigan won out. The deciding factor was convenience to the Motor City itself, where the Big Three auto makers' main research and engineering facilities are located.

The site selection news in the automotive industry for the last few years has been about the outward migration of facilities from Motown's environs into Ohio and Indiana, and the developing southern automotive belt. Now, industry trends that emphasize and require intense collaboration with tier one suppliers are pulling facilities in the opposite direction. Not only are major auto makers beefing up their research and engineering efforts themselves, but tier one suppliers are opening their own technical centers within shouting distance of GM's Warren facility, Ford's Dearborn plant and DaimlerChryler's footprint in Auburn Hills, all suburbs of Detroit to the north and west.

Tom Livernois, executive director of AGC America, says these current trends in site selection and facilities development are the ultimate result of a fundamental change in the automo tive industry, in which more and more design and engineering work is pushed down onto tier one suppliers. "Tier one suppliers have been doing more design and development for auto makers for the last three to five years," he observes. "It's been a steep learning curve for a lot of suppliers, but they're catching up." Now that enough of them have reached the point where they can collaborate seriously with auto makers on entire sub-assemblies, the suppliers are opening their own technical centers, often for the first time, or branching out from their original technical centers near their headquarters in other states.

Even as engineering and collaborative research is concentrating in the Detroit area, auto manufacturers are renewing their commitments not just to Michigan, but also to Southern California. Auto makers are opening and expanding facilities there concentrating on design, trend-watching and market research in an effort to capture every slight nuance in consumer-taste changes, futuristic design considerations and technological innovation adaptable from Silicon Valley.