PSA Peugeot Citroen is launching a three-year plan to improve the quality of the components it buys from its 700-strong supply chain.

PSA’s new purchasing director Jean-Philippe Colin told the French business paper Les Echos this week that "the quality of our suppliers is not entirely satisfactory, and that costs us a lot of money".

The plan sets the overall target of reducing the number of defective parts supplied by 25% every six months until the end of 2007. Within that framework, some 30 specific measures have been defined.