AUTOMOTIVE
Tier 1 Safety and Interiors
World's Most Productive Companies
Safety & Interiors: Adapting to Volatility and Innovation
Tier 1 Suppliers of Safety and Interiors design and manufacture interior systems, safety modules, and electronic control technologies. These firms play a central role in cockpit design, user experience, and vehicle intelligence, including HMI, ADAS, infotainment, and passenger safety systems. They sell to the automotive OEMs under long-term vehicle platform contracts, compete on cost, quality, launch execution, and innovation.
Major influences included COVID-19 shutdowns and the semiconductor shortage. Subsequent high inflation, rising interest rates, geopolitical tensions, and the costly industry shift towards electric and software-defined vehicles also put significant pressure on their profitability.
The period from 2019 to 2024 was defined by COVID shutdowns and restarts, a multi-year chip shortage, inflation in materials and energy, tighter labor markets, a 2023 UAW strike, freight disruptions, including those in the Red Sea, and uneven EV uptake. These forces whipsawed schedules, costs, and capital plans across this Peer Group.
Top 100 World's Most Productive Companies - Tier 1 Safety and Interiors
Productivity Snapshot
This peer group experienced a similar productivity trend to many other industries and peer groups: a surge in productivity from 2020 to 2023, followed by a regression to declining productivity in 2023 and 2024.
- Productivity in the sector has grown overall by 13.6% over the last six years. This segment, like automotive generally, performed well above the average for manufacturers represented in the IPI.
- The peer group experienced a 16% decline in productivity from 2022 to 2024.
- All companies in this peer group experienced negative productivity growth in 2023 and 2024.
- 2024 Productivity declined by an average of 5.2% across these companies.
- Adient earned its position within the LNS 2025 World’s Most Productive Companies by growing productivity 19.7% over the last six years, 16.2% better than the average of its peers/competitors over the last six years. Adient’s leading productivity performance is driven by intense cost restructuring (especially in Europe), embedding automation and AI into key processes, enforcing launch and operational discipline, and managing “business performance” metrics to decouple gains from volume swings.
