Delphi Automotive Systems Corporation is the world’s largest and most diversified manufacturer of automobile components. It was spun off in the mid-1990s from the world’s largest manufacturer of automobiles, General Motors (GM), which still accounted for 70 percent of its business in 2000, although it counts all of the world’s manufacturers of light vehicles among its clients. The vast enterprise, occupying 190 factories in 31 countries, claims an invention a day, a new product or process every week. Sixty percent of the company’s workforce is based outside North America.