José Ignacio López de Arriortúa (born 18 January 1941) is a Spanish businessman who held senior positions at Opel, General Motors and Volkswagen.

[1][2][3][4][5] Lopez was born in Amorebieta, Basque Country, Spain, where his father ran a car repair workshop.

There he established consumer price driven production methods dubbed "Purchased Input Concept Optimisation with Suppliers" or PICOS, which reversed commonly held supplier-manufacturer relations in the automotive industry.

[1] After only one year in his position, Lopez abruptly resigned from GM in 1993, purportedly as executives decided to build an automotive plant with his lean production system in Poland or Hungary instead of his native Spain as initially promised.

Lopez introduced a number of changes to the supply chains and production methods at Volkswagen and GM known as "Purchased Input Concept Optimisation with Suppliers" or PICOS.

[12][13][14][15][16] Automotive News suggested that Lopez “knows all the tricks--how to use emotion, flattery, jokes, threats, ruthlessness, even lying if need be” to wring cuts from reluctant suppliers.