Well, we're ready to kick off our next Fireside Chat, which is with management of Lear. So just to introduce this, I would say there are a lot of things that suppliers really can't control in their environment around them. Things like production, mix, currencies, sometimes even labor costs. But the best performing ones always seem to be two steps ahead of what we're seeing at the moment. They focus on the technologies that give them a competitive advantage in the future. Over the past year, it's become increasingly apparent to me that one of those companies that sets the benchmark in that regard is Lear. It really wasn't apparent when they bought InTouch and Thagora a couple of years ago that computer vision and automation is gonna become so important, but certainly is now.
The strategy behind the acquisitions of IGB and Kongsberg weren't obvious when we first saw them, but they're now conveying potential for some real competitive advantages in the industry in terms of market share, in terms of margin. And in fact, the company is completely rethinking how seats are actually made, which is really awesome. The culmination of all of those actions, I think now you can look back and say: This is one of the reasons why Lear, in this industry, has had higher margins than their peers, and why they've been gaining market share as that's been occurring. So there's a lot for us to be talking about, today. So I'm very pleased to welcome Ray Scott, Lear's CEO, and Jason Cardew, the company's CFO.
Ray, I think maybe first, I have a number of questions, but maybe to start us off, if you can give us a little bit of a business update, that would be great.
Yeah, that was a good segue to our lead-in, Rod. It-- we obviously work in a very demanding industry, and, it's, it's a, a very interesting time, and I think with some of the things that you mentioned, last year was a very important year for us, and I, I think the team did a remarkable job. You know, we finalized our IGB acquisition, which was a key part of our strategy moving forward in seating. And, I'll explain a little bit more about the importance of some of the other acquisitions because it is a product process, I think, development and strategy going forward with Lear Corporation, and, and how those work together within the manufacturing world. You know, we had improvements within our E-Systems business. We simplified the product portfolio.
We're doing a really nice job of continuing to improve margins. It's— There were six consecutive improvements of margin year-over-year within the E-Systems, and we continue to be very, very focused on where we get a fair return for our investment in E-Systems. And I think importantly, with our relationships with our customers and how we simplified our portfolio, we're still growing the business. We've had three consecutive years of $1 billion of backlog, which is really important within E-Systems, so that's really starting to play out. I think in the automation side of our business, you mentioned Thagora, InTouch. ASI was another tuck-in acquisition, along with our own internal organic innovation. We're starting to see the improvements within our manufacturing facilities.
One of the most recent, I think, unprecedented-setting examples of that was the Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer that we launched in 8 months from a competitor that couldn't have, you know, produced to the customer's output or wasn't getting a return from an efficiency standpoint. We launched that and hit on every one of their one of our key customers' measurables. Output was significantly higher, we have been told from our customer that our quality was significantly better, and we're getting a good return on the business. And so I think that's an example of all the hard work that we're putting in place with automation within the company.
So 2023 was a really good year to continue to build on the basis of the strategy going forward, and now we're starting to see the results, you know, in 2023 from 2024, and then, and, and further out in the 2025, 2026 time frame. So...
I'm gonna speak a little bit louder because across my lap here, and I don't have free hands, so I can't hold the mic. But, I wanted to ask you about the performance that you're delivering is-
Mm-hmm
... actually pretty impressive. You're talking about flattening production. More of the performance that you're delivering in terms of margin actually has to come from backlog. How does it? You've got headwinds from labor, $90 million. You've got headwinds from FX, $70 million. These are those just two things alone is like 70 basis points of margin for a company like Lear.
Mm-hmm.
And yet you're still growing your margin despite that. I wanted to ask whether that
Mm-hmm
... suggests that really what we're seeing is underlying performance half year is actually better than what it appeared. It seems that way to me. And if some of those headwinds moderate into 2025, does that actually suggest that margin?
Yeah, Rod, absolutely it does. If you just look at, you know, in a normal year of wage inflation and maybe without the transactional FX headwind, which we would expect 2025 to be more normal than what we're experiencing here in 2024, you'll see the benefit of those performance improvements show itself in margin expansion. We think it's reasonable to target, you know, 50 basis points of margin expansion, maybe, you know, maybe even 100 basis points of margin expansion through our performance improvements. And that's that starts with our normal, you know, kind of roster of cost reduction activities, purchasing negotiations, customer negotiations, plan efficiencies, but it's really bolstered by what we're doing most recently with automation. That is the catalyst for additional performance improvement.
You know, historically, those performance improvements were designed to offset your customer price reductions and normal wage inflation. And so going forward, we see automation as a point of differentiation to allow us to not only offset those, but generate, you know, 50 basis points or more of margin expansion. So I think it's only 15 basis points in 2024, because it's weighed down, as you pointed out, by 70 basis points of headwinds in those two areas. If that normalizes even, you know, kind of halfway back to the 2020, 2021 range, then you'll see something like 50-75 basis points in 2025 of margin expansion from those initiatives.
That's on that point on, on automation, manufacturing, that's been a really big topic for us. Obviously, it's been a big, big topic for you guys internally. You bought a few companies over the past few years that focus on manufacturing, vision systems, automation, robotics. Timing of that obviously sounds like pretty good. Will that expand throughout the manufacturing? Tell us a little bit about what that means for the company.
Yeah, well, those were. We've been talking about labor scarcity and labor disruptions and focused on this for some time now, and I think it's obviously a topic that's very important today in today's environment, with a lot of the things that are going on, particularly around the lower cost countries, where, you know, a lot of that was just a labor arbitrage play, and we did a very good job at that. But to really stay focused on our operational excellence and really what we're good at, we acquired several companies that were nice tuck-in acquisitions. You know, when you mentioned Thagora or InTouch or ASI, these are areas where you're working with cobots, you're working with laser systems, camera systems, very specific capabilities.
You know, I was just actually in one of our pilot facilities, where we're running the different technologies. What's nice is these companies that we've acquired have expanded and worked in a collaborative way to solve even bigger problems within the company. So one of the line examples I just recently saw, we've been able to put the different capital in place in North America, is taking it from early on, finesse and automating it all the way to the end line and all the way to the customer's point of installation. That, depending on the production environment, is a 20% reduction in direct line headcount, and we're putting that in production later this year in North America, and quickly expanding that throughout the world.
And what we did was these companies that we acquired were servicing our competitors. And so this technology with connection systems, very sophisticated connection systems, testing systems, laser systems, camera systems, we just brought that all in-house. So we don't service our competitors anymore. We let the contracts run out, and we brought it in-house. So Lear has the capabilities in-house, and we're making our own capital around that. Now, that capital is coming in significantly lower, too, than what was purchased on the outside. So we're not only seeing ergonomic improvements, we're seeing quality improvements, we're seeing significant, you know, improvements within our headcount, within our plants. We're keeping it all internally to Lear, and we're also seeing a much more lower cost of capital.
So I think one of the concerns as you shift to automation, okay, your capital number is gonna go up. No. You look last year, our capital number was down, and we're putting this in in every one of our facilities at some level, and so we're actually getting at our capital number much more efficient. And I actually think that's gonna only improve. What we're seeing with technology, and that's why I say I'm so excited, is that we have you know in in our trim cover business, 35% of our labor is represented in with the trim itself. We're automating. I was just down in Mexico several weeks ago, how we're automating and taking these capabilities that we have and automating what was... I would say, turning the impossible and making it possible.
Because so they said, "The variability in trim coverage, you can't really automate." Yes, you can! I'm seeing where we're actually doing it through these vision systems, laser systems, you know, how we're cutting the material itself through Thagora, what we learn there, how we're quickly taking that across our different facilities. And same thing with E-Systems, with wiring. 90% of our labor in E-Systems is tied to wiring, and I've seen great improvements in how we're reducing through automation the ability to get at efficiencies within our plant. And the capital I saw that was deployed, both in China and then we also have it in Mexico, was 30%-40% lower than what we were acquiring it before, with the improvements I'm talking about.
I mean, it's—you're sitting there looking at it, I'm seeing ergonomic improvements, I'm seeing safety improvements, I'm seeing, you know, quality improvements, I'm seeing, you know, efficiencies on the plant floor, and these are things that we're getting at quickly and starting to deploy. And so it has been—we've been somewhat quiet about it, because it has been tied to some of our modularity strategies, too. We talk about seating. It's—modularity solution in seating is something that we've been working on well over 10 years, and there's a product side, but there's a process side.
The product side is moving that product to the customer, and the improvements that we're seeing—When you're talking about... I mean, we all, we all sit in vehicles and, and, you know, you have the lumbar system that's on your back, and it's there, but it's not therapeutic.
It's not something that you sit, I would say, sitting in your kitchen, "I wanna go get in my car because I got this pain in my back." We improved the system itself by moving it from what is the C surface or the B surface to the A surface, 150% from sensation. So the customer, you sit in these seats, you're going: "That feels good on my back." The first time, I don't feel like something just moving, I feel therapeutic. I feel health and benefits from what we're seeing within the modular system... along with time to sensation with heat. You know, we 85% improvement, you know, beyond the first minute in the seat.
A 50% improvement in ventilation within the seat, and we'll talk about FlexAir and some of the other things that we've developed in concert or in collaboration with the modular seat that's really taking off. And so I think it's product, I think it's process, but we're really, really focused on maintaining that operational excellence and being a leader within automation and manufacturing excellence.
Can you just make this a little bit more specific for this community? So just financially, what does this automation do? You said that 35% of your seating labor is in trim. So what will we see if you're successful in this automation trajectory in terms of efficiency or labor cost reduction, that kind of thing?
I think it's the key driver of net performance, so performance exceeding our customer price downs each year and our wage inflation. It is the key driver. Historically, if you go back 15 years, labor arbitrage, restructuring, moving from high cost to low cost, was the key catalyst for differentiating yourself competitively and generating margin expansion, particularly in seating and in these systems. As we go forward, you know, we see labor arbitrage are sort of in the seventh or eighth inning of that play. There's still some work we can do, moving from Eastern Europe to North Africa, moving from the border towns of Mexico further inland, moving some material out of the chip plants down to lower cost facilities. But that's the very end of the game.
There's the last inning or so. We're in the first or second inning of the automation journey that Ray's describing. And so we see that, you know, over the next 10 years, being the key catalyst for generating margin expansion and being able to differentiate ourselves competitively, offset customer price downs, and offset wage inflation. You know, we debate this all the time internally. You know, when is that inflection point where automation exceeds the benefit or the cost associated with wage inflation? We haven't pinpointed that to a quarter or a year yet, but that is absolutely what we're focused on delivering.
I think for an example within that, 'cause there's a lot of different, you know, types of like harnesses, for example. You have the full body, very complex. You have high voltage, which is more simpler, which you can automate relatively easy. You have, you know, some of the body parts within the harness that are more simpler harnesses. What I saw with the capital that we had deployed on the ground was a 20%, 10%-20% reduction on, depending on the harness, of labor within that facility. And so these are big numbers. And then, and that's one area of the twisting and connection of the harness system itself.
We have projects and pilots within the whole assembly of the harness, and so each one of them are slightly different, and take a little bit different look at how we're going to automate them. But they're nonetheless seeing those type of numbers within the reduction of cost and head counts within the plant.
It sounds really big. You know, in the discussions we've had over the past couple of months, another thing that I found very interesting is this focus on creating competitive advantage relative to your peers in the seating industry. And a lot of that had to do with the level of vertical integration that you're able to achieve now in thermal comfort systems. And you've said that that's going to contribute to market share and ultimately to margins. So look, I know that thermal comfort averages around $30 per vehicle, but that's kind of misleading 'cause it's a big denominator with low content, and some vehicles have $300-
Right
... of content per vehicle from that, and that's relative to a seat set that could be $700-$1,000. It's a big number. Could you talk about the capabilities that the acquisition gave you, and what are you trying to accomplish with that?
So between Kongsberg and IGB, it gave us the full set of capabilities with pneumatic lumbars. You have your sensors within the seat for occupant detections. You have the heating elements. You have everything that makes up a thermal comfort system. And what we gained from that was having the engineering, the expertise, and the manufacturing competency, because we're changing the way those systems are developed. And, you know, I think it's important to understand that it's been a layered approach of how seating is sourced today. And so it's inefficient at a component level when you look at it holistically. And so each component might be designed for efficient, but when you pull it together, when you have the cables and harnesses and modules, two different modules with two different software programs, that can be one.
Cables that are, you know, assembled through the seat itself to the A surface doesn't make any sense. You, you actually... We have a design that puts the tubes right into the modular system itself. And so it was having that engineering capability where you could design these singular systems. Which, when you look at it, it's common sense. You say, "Why isn't it designed that way?" But it is a breakdown in, in theory, of how the customer sources the seat today. And what's been interesting is how overwhelmingly positive the customers have seen this. Because we're right now, and, and, and I've said this before, it's important that you get this, the production validation done, and we're in different levels of development with over 11 customers right now, and, and-
Twelve customers
... 12 customers, and there's, like, 25 different development programs. We'll be done with the validation program this year. So we'll be in production with a component-level modular next year.... And I think when you have that validation, and it resonates with all your customers, you get more of a pull. And so we're working. I mean, the finalizing that IGB was very important, 'cause it gave us enormous amount of credibility. We're already designing the integration of these components, and it's one step. So we have the four, or really, Phase III right now, where you have the component level, where we can compete on any component level, you know, with anyone in the market. You have Phase II, which is the integration I just mentioned.
And then the last phase, which I think is very important and we're in development with certain customers, is in the integration of the foam pad itself and trim. So we see it moving right to the back of the Trim cover, as opposed to anything on a frame, you're not feeling or getting any sensation, and it's a waste of material money trying to route it around the foam. And so why FlexAir has been so important, it's a ventilated foam pad that we're in production now. Hyundai put it in production. They're moving fast. You know, we have 25 different programs right now in development with customers across thirteen different customers. That is the dirtiest product within seats. It's you know, it's a reduction when you go to FlexAir of carbon dioxide of 50%.
It's 100% recyclable. It's very competitive when you talk about just the price of the component, and it hits what they're looking for with sustainability. That product helps the whole modular concept come together, and then the trim cover itself. And so we see this eventually moving right to the A surface of the seat. We're cutting out 50% of the component, you know, within a thermal comfort system. I believe when you get that packaging and that efficiency, that then it's gonna spread to other parts of the seat. You know, why it's limited to second and third row is just packaging and the cost. But we think we can actually be much more efficient within those areas and offer customers different features.
I think when you hit back on that whole value of sensation, you know, both from a comfort standpoint and from a time sensation standpoint, it's what the customer is looking for. So we're working through that right now. Our focus is completing these development programs. Because once we get that validated, then we can take it across different vehicle lines.
You know, it's really interesting and maybe hard for somebody who's not been to a seating plant to actually envision what you're saying. But, but basically, the, the way I would describe this is, you've got these automakers that are saying, "I want that pneumatic system, so that lumbar from that company, and this company's making the cooling, heating thing, and this is the company that's supplying you with the foam and this-- And you guys, you can ship your trim from, from Mexico up to this JIT plant." Everything shows up in different boxes at the plant, and then you've got somebody in North America making $20 an hour, taking this spaghetti of, of tubes and wiring it through the seat frame-
Yep.
and doing all that work, whereas by having all these things, you just engineer it into one component kind of thing.
So you're right. It's flipping it from what is exactly taking components, what the JIT world today is from a, from an assembly standpoint, is taking those and designed for assembly manufacturing.
Mm-hmm.
You're stuck in some respects with these components that are not efficient.
Yeah.
When you talk about the whole seat. What we're doing, and it's amazing, like I say, it's so simple when you look at it. I mean, you have multiple harnesses, multiple cables, multiple software, you know, boxes within the seat, you know, for power within the seat, and you combine them.
Yeah.
It when you lay it on the table and you see the hundreds of parts, and you're going, "This doesn't make sense," and you simplify it. If you take everything out and say, "This is how it should be assembled," and it just like I said, we took 50% of the parts out.
Mm-hmm.
Yet it's lower, it's lower weight.
Yeah.
I mean, you're getting improvements within, you know, the comfort, satisfaction within the seat, and it's hitting what the customer is looking for. So it's just changing, and we're doing a good job of changing how the customer sources the components. And that was kind of the real challenge, is that, do you have the engineering expertise? Do you have the manufacturing expertise? Have you validated all the products? That's what we're going through, and that's what is kind of the time element right now, but that's moving extremely fast with our customers 'cause they see the value.
And then I think what's important, too, Rod, is not only we, the product side, but it's also the automation of the modular. You know, so these companies we bought were intentional, both on the product side. IGB and Kongsberg were very, very selective.
We specifically targeted those companies 'cause of their expertise. Then the companies that we acquired with automation was intentional, too, because we understand what we need to do in some of our bigger plants with, you know, with trim and also wiring, but more importantly, with this modular design, that creates a much more flexible manufacturing process. That will be automated. So as it comes together, the automation in parallel is being worked on with the design.
And so we have design for automation engineers within the facility right now, in parallel, as we're validating. And so, like I said, I was just in the facility the other day. It's exciting with what we're doing with the technology. I think the technology, to Jason's point, is coming at us so fast, and so having it in-house, we—and we're not selling it to anyone.
I mean, we, we've cut the contracts off. We get to keep that benefit, and I think we saw it, like I said, real life is the Wagoneer. I mean, how do you take a program over in eight months and launch it more efficient, better quality, lower cost? It's the capabilities we have.
What does it mean for margins and capital intensity, what you're saying?
Yeah, so if you look at our business historically, you know, we've talked about low 3%, you know, capital as percentage of sales. Last year, we were at 2.7%. Our guidance for this year is 2.8%. Historically, seating's kind of in the low 2s. The thermal comfort systems in general are a little bit more capital-intensive than our overall seat business. But despite that, we see a path to continuing to lower our capital spending or hold it sort of in that low 2% range in seating and through the other benefits that Ray described, through the acquisitions, in particular, and through just capacity utilization improvements generally through the Lear Forward program we kicked off at the start of last year.
So those two factors are allowing us to make additional investments in automation, make additional investments in capacity and thermal comfort systems, while still delivering sub 3%, CapEx as a company. So that's a real change in the model for our business. And you look out five years, we see it sort of in that similar range. So if we can achieve 8% operating margins in both segments, you're gonna see, you know, return on invested capital that's higher than it has been historically, just because of the reduction in capital intensity.
We are seeing the step down, and like I said, the piece of equipment that was $1 million that, you know, for years we've spent the same amount of money. When we redeploy it, it was 30% lower by working with partners that are much more focused on what we need on the floor with automation. And we're doing—there's not gonna be a step up, it's... we're doing it in parallel, where it makes sense, too. The introduction of what I mentioned with, from finesse to end of line , we're going to have it 100% automated, is done, you know, at a time when it's required to update the capital. And so it's being deployed in a very, very sensible way.
Let me ask you about one of the challenges in the industry now. You obviously, you've got a lot of growth. You're a 25% market share company now. You've been talking about getting to 29% by 2027. 4 points of market share in this industry is about $2.5 billion. So, but the other dynamic that we're observing in the industry right now is these shifts in market share between the companies and the industry. So if we look from 2019 to today, the Western companies have lost about 9 points a share. Can you just talk a little bit about...
I don't think it's been noticeable for everybody, because the industry's gone from the 70 million unit production to 90 million, but now in a flatter production, is that something that you spend a lot of time thinking about? And is that something that you feel like you're well positioned for, just given exposures that you've got? Do you have enough exposure to the market share gainers?
Yeah. So, you know, if you look at China specifically, where that's where the biggest market share shift has happened, you know, we are under indexed to the Chinese domestic OEMs. Historically, it's about 20% of our business in China. It's now 30-31% this year, is our current outlook. Looking at our backlog, it's about two-thirds Chinese domestic OEMs for our China business, Seating and E-Systems, combined. So over time, we see our business in China kind of more closely resembling the market over there. Clearly, that's, you know, that's been a challenge in the very short term, and it was reflected in the weaker growth in China, specifically towards the end of last year.
As we look out into the future, we do see a lot of success with the Chinese domestic OEMs, BYD in particular. I think we're gonna have 30% of their seat business in 2026, be our second largest customer in seating in China. They're clearly one of the big winners in the marketplace, and we're doing quite well.
Will they take you outside of China as they expand into Europe?
We won our first program with them outside of China in Southeast Asia. We're working with them on their footprint they're putting in South America and Hungary and elsewhere. We haven't been awarded those contracts yet, but we are working around the clock to win that business too.
I think having... We talked about differentiation and competitive advantage. Having products like FlexAir and ReNew Knit and the modular design that we have, particularly in China, too, because they're, it's a really fast design concept, so they move a lot faster and it's, you know, particularly around some of these innovations that we're talking about. You know, Hyundai is the first one to introduce the FlexAir. And I do believe that we're gonna have our customers are gonna want to take that across all their vehicle lines once they validate and make sure they're okay in production. And so we're in that time right now, but that's a $4.5 billion market.
Mm-hmm.
I don't know why we're using some of the old chemicals when you talk about environmental products within the seat. I think once that kind of gets released and recognized, and there is a customer that says, "We're going across the board," and they make a big statement, that's a great opportunity.
Yeah.
Particularly with some of these customers that Jason just mentioned, they're excited about those products. And so that's an entry point in that others don't have, because we bring the innovation and technology to customers that are really looking at how to explore and expand, and we can do it in a component level. And so once you get your entry point in, then you start looking at a much bigger picture with how they're expanding and where they're expanding, but that's where we've really had success. And we have 40% of the Hyundai business outside of what is in-house for them today. So we've a big customer for us, we represent a big percentage of their business in seating. And so those are kind of some- You say we do think about it all the time, Rod, we do.
How do we deploy our capabilities, innovation, even at a component level, to get entry? That's been working really well for us.
Yeah. Well, it's good to see that companies are actually engaging with you on that, 'cause they—sometimes it's the suppliers have really good ideas, and there's a reluctance, there's some inertia within the OEMs that... But maybe at this point, there's enough pressure on them that they're actually looking for these kinds of things to take closer.
Not all of a sudden.
Yeah, obviously.
I think that's where we get-
Yeah
... focus on. When we get a little bit of momentum, we just go.
Yeah.
We really ride that customer.
Yeah.
But I wish I could say across the board, some of them still have that, "not built here" mentality, and they're a little bit more reluctant.
Yeah.
But I think when you get that production contract, it's a game changer. It's like the momentum we got in FlexAir when we announced Hyundai.
Yeah.
It was amazing. It's in production.
Let me just ask one last one, because we're out of time. So you have $1.2 billion of cash on your balance sheet right now. You're gonna be generating $600 million-$750 million, somewhere in that zone, of cash this year. What's the cash level that you want to operate with in the business, and what, what should we be expecting as far as uses of cash now?
I think a billion to a billion two is kind of where we're comfortable operating. We ended the year at a billion two cash on hand. We're very focused on continuing to improve free cash flow generation. We got back above our target of free cash flow conversion as a percentage of adjusted net income. We had targeted 80%, we delivered 90% last year. Our guidance is mid-80s this year. We continue to generate that level of cash. It gives us all kinds of options, of course. We've looked at smaller tuck-in acquisitions, mostly around these equipment suppliers that Ray described earlier. Those continue to be appealing to us. Good return, quick return acquisitions, but they're small tuck-in.
The balance of our cash deployment is really gonna be around share repurchases, similar to what you saw last year.
Sounds good. Great. Well, thanks, guys. I really appreciate your time, management of Lear.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for having us, Rod.
Very good to see you.
Great seeing you, yeah. Very nice seeing you.
You're gonna get a chance to-