Word: saturns
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Saturn may also lure customers away from other GM products, especially its highly successful Geo line, which is made with partners Suzuki and Toyota. "They're not going to steal market share from the Japanese," says Paul Lienert, editor of Automotive Industries' Insider, a trade newsletter. "It's more likely that they'll cannibalize other GM products, so for the company it will be a net wash in market share...
...Saturn's biggest challenges will be to turn a profit, even in the long run. "Nobody makes money on small cars," says Maryann Keller, an analyst for the investment firm Furman Selz Mager Dietz & Birney. "Saturn's no different from anybody else. The Japanese certainly don't make money on small cars." In most cases, those models serve as loss leaders for the larger, more option-loaded vehicles and to boost the average fuel-efficiency of an automaker's total fleet in order to meet U.S. government standards. But GM president Lloyd Reuss contends that Saturn will make a profit...
...gloomy picture, or does it herald real change for the manufacturer? GM chairman Robert Stempel, who succeeded Roger Smith last August, is likely to operate in ways far different from his predecessor. Smith, an autocratic manager with a purely financial background, made sweeping strategic moves that included launching Saturn and spending billions of dollars on high-tech robotics and such acquisitions as Electronic Data Systems and Hughes Aircraft. Stempel, by contrast, is an authentic "car guy." His most important attribute may be his reputation as a steadfast team player, since almost everyone agrees that GM's challenge...
...heart of the issue is consumer trust, which the Japanese have deservedly won and GM now has an opportunity to win back. Inspired by Saturn, GM may be able to turn the once derogatory epithet "domestic" into a true competitive advantage. "The Japanese have been worried about this for some time. It scares the liver out of them," says David Cole, director of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan...
...Saturn succeeds, then the message to the rest of American industry will be unambiguous. The American work force, often and unfairly maligned as the cause of U.S. competitive woes over the past two decades, can compete with anyone if managed intelligently. GM's smaller U.S. rivals have already adopted some of the progressive techniques employed at Saturn. Ford, which is using Japanese-style team systems at many of its plants, has already improved so much that its efficiency matches that of the average Japanese plant in Japan. Chrysler's best factory, in Sterling Heights, Mich., is nearly as efficient...