The End of the Line as They Know It – New York Times The link above is an article about “Detroit Three” employees taking voluntary buyouts. There are some insights into the working world of the plants these employees leave…
New Detroit Woe: Makers of Parts Won’t Cut Prices – WSJ.com Wah, the latest complaint from the “Detroit Three” (formerly known as the “Big Three”) is that they are having trouble squeezing and stomping on their suppliers for lower prices.…
Some of you might have read my “ChangeThis” manifesto, “How Toyota Can Save Your Life… At The Hospital.” I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from lean professionals, healthcare professionals (including an MD), and lean healthcare professionals. Thanks for that,…
In the past, I’ve referenced a story I had heard about a GM plant in 1980’s where the “completed” vehicles went to one of two areas: “minor repair” or “major repair”, the implications being that the factory relied on inspection…
GM Got Gamed (Or, How to Fudge Your Production Numbers to Keep the Boss Happy) TL;DR: At a GM engine plant, fear-based leadership pushed supervisors to falsify production data to avoid punishment. The numbers looked good, but real problems stayed…
Dream Cars: Made-to-Order Line Could Restore Pride in American Autos – WSJ.comThe WSJ published a group of letters critical of GM in response to the article about the head of AutoNation calling on the automakers to “think different” (to borrow…
GM in early talks to buy Chrysler: source – Yahoo! News I’m reminded of hearing Tom Peters ask once: “What do you expect when one big, slow, dopey company merges with another big, slow, dopey, company??” That’s pretty much the…
GM agrees to change robot suicide ad after objections – Feb. 9, 2007 GM has bowed to pressure from suicide prevention groups, but still doesn’t see anything wrong with firing a robot for making a mistake. Please check out my…
GM sticking with robot suicide ad criticized by group – CNN For different reasons than the reasons why I didn’t like the ad, but groups are attacking the “suicidal robot” ad for being insensitive. I still can’t believe that GM…
Here is the actual ad that ran during the game, after seeing the preview here. If you’re reading this via RSS or a news reader, come visit the actual blog page to view the commercial video. So, the “joke”…
Kevin Meyer, over at Evolving Excellence, gets credit for finding this first — GM’s Super Bowl commercial: My comments, posted on Kevin’s site: Imagine if the billions GM spent on technology development had been put into people development and lean.…
Why U.S. automakers like GM and Ford are losing money – Jan. 26, 2007 Wow, leave it to a professional journalist to spin a phrase like my headline for this post. We don’t really need another post or discussion here…