Word: opel
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...Overall, GM has made virtually no gains in productivity and remains the highest-cost automaker in the U.S. In fact, the company has been losing money on its North American carmaking plants for several years and has had to rely for profits on its successful European operations (auto brands: Opel, Vauxhall), its auto- financing subsidiary and other divisions...
Widely admired among his troops as "a car guy," Stempel, the first career engineer to run the company, earned an M.B.A. in night school and a reputation for decisiveness and innovation while working his way up at GM. As head of the Adam Opel operation in West Germany in the early 1980s, for example, he was credited with igniting the transformation of GM's inefficient European arm into a powerhouse. Overseas car operations contributed $2.6 billion of the company's $4.2 billion in 1989 earnings. Having won his stripes under the hood, Stempel must now take swift action to restore...
Because the parent corporation was stingy in investing in GM Europe, the company learned to make every cent count. "Basically these guys had to fight for everything they got," says Opel chairman Hughes. "But the fact is on the other side you've got this gigantic company with gigantic investments to retool all those products. It was too much. If there's a lesson here, it's that smaller is better. It's easier to control...
...biggest challenge: the Japanese. GM Europe builds small cars and engines that generally match their Japanese counterparts in quality, performance and fuel efficiency. (Only in one area, productivity, is the company seriously lagging behind its Asian rivals.) Why, then, has North American GM failed to import more of Opel's technology and know-how? GM executives in Europe tend to shrug at the question and point to the occasional instance of cooperation. Most notable: the Pontiac LeMans, which is in effect an Opel Kadett built in South Korea by Daewoo and shipped to the U.S. "I wouldn't rule...
...influence of GM's European experience is likely to become stronger in Detroit when Chairman Roger Smith, 64, departs later this year. The leading contender for the job is President Robert Stempel, 56, who as managing director of Opel from 1980 to 1982 gave the green light for the redesign of the successful Kadett. And a likely candidate for the president's job is John Smith, 51, who from 1986 until his repatriation in 1988 was president of GM Europe. The two executives would be likely to push GM toward faster, less centralized decision making. Domestic GM has a long...