Word: gm
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...made the pilgrimage to Fremont en masse to see the miracle of NUMMI. Some dismissed what should have become a model for the entire industry. True, the technology wasn't that innovative. But Toyota had made the workforce integral to improving the system. Workers were not mere labor inputs. GM had no problem understanding the just-in-time inventory system Toyota used, but executing it required a buy-in from the shop floor so that everyone was dedicated to improvement. The Toyota system, says MacDuffie, "relies on contributions from employees. It feels vulnerable, but your willingness to be open...
...Management in a Mess Detroit's corporate culture is obviously complicit in the industry's deterioration, just as it was guilty of creating an unparalleled manufacturing system decades earlier. The Detroit approach has been plan-command-control, stemming from that original control freak, Henry Ford. At GM, a management hierarchy that had been created by GM's master planner, Alfred P. Sloan, in the '20s - GM's first and most successful restructuring - was still functioning in the '80s. Management's job was to create the products, design the production system and provide solutions if there were problems. Everyone else followed...
...Failing to cure themselves of the Not Invented Here disease, Detroit's bosses resorted to Hail Mary attempts to fix what were long-term issues. "They were constantly looking at buy, sell, hire, fire, looking to be rescued from their predicament," says Spear. On the buy side, GM CEO Roger Smith acquired Hughes Aircraft, EDS and a 50% stake in Saab. His successors bought the Hummer, 20% of Korea-owned Suzuki and 20% of Fiat with the obligation to buy it or pay to get rid of it. (The latter course was chosen, at a cost of $2 billion...
...price of halfway restructurings was steep. In 1985, GM aped Japan's practice of building global cars - the idea was to share chassis and parts across brands, a strategy that made sense at the engineering level. At the consumer level, it was a disaster. Internal clashes for control removed imagination from design, resulting in look-alike Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs. Sales declined; cue another restructuring. The Germans, who have their own auto culture, were no match for Chrysler after they bought the company in 1998. No wonder they gave it back...
...GM, its current crop of autos, including the revived Malibu, is the strongest of the Detroit Three's fleets in North America, but it is still truck-heavy. Globally, GM is expanding in Russia and China; it is a solid performer in Europe and South America. With the advent of the Chevy Volt in 2010, the company will be in a position to lead the industry into hybrid-electric and then fully electric vehicles. "There's enough good product in the pipeline," says MacDuffie. "Judged against the past, it's really impressive...