Word: plantes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Even with its recent success, Hyundai's market position remains insecure. The next few months will be especially challenging. With a host of new models coming out and its U.S. plant just revving up, Hyundai may have a harder time maintaining quality. "They're not out of the woods yet," says J.D. Power's Parker. Dwindling profit margins are another problem. The average Hyundai car retails for 10-15% less than a comparable Toyota or Honda in the U.S., but with rising labor costs and a weaker dollar, Hyundai must persuade customers to pay more so that profits keep growing...
Howard Fields, 56, had no intention of changing his ways just because of an unfair regulation. After all, the autoworker had parked in the front lot of Ford's Lima, Ohio, engine plant for 28 years. So when United Auto Workers Local 1219 and Ford last year signed an agreement requiring employees with foreign cars to park in a back lot more than half a mile away from the factory, the old-timer ignored the new rule and continued to leave his 1981 Nissan in the front...
...factories are being allowed to turn out consumer products along with staples ordered by the government. The 98-year-old Jianshe Machine Tool Works, for example, produces Yamaha motorcycles as well as rifles. The reforms are stimulating competition. Jianshe's Yamahas are up against Hondas assembled in another Chongqing plant. Says Jianshe Plant Manager Chen Zisheng: "The competition is good. It makes us compete on quality, and that is important...
...supervision, managers are allowed to distribute more bonuses to their workers, although some excesses in the practice have been criticized recently by Peking. With fewer agencies of the national government to report to, the city government has been able to coordinate and streamline industrial operations. Chongqing Iron and Steel Plant No. 3, for instance, manufactures rolled sheet steel for the Post and Telecommunications Equipment Factory, three miles away. Under the old system, the material had to be shipped to a central government warehouse 150 miles away in the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, and was then transported back to Chongqing...
...grocery stores and a pair of gas stations. Founded in 1913 and named for the niece of the region's largest landowner, Beulah was populated mostly by farmers and coal miners. Then, in 1978, the Department of Energy announced that it would finance a $2.1 billion commercial synthetic-fuels plant, the first in the U.S., to be built on the outskirts of Beulah. Operated by a five-member consortium of energy companies, including Tenneco and Transco Energy, the 600-acre project would turn coal into natural gas and be the centerpiece of the Government's efforts to produce substitutes...