The Death of the Jobs Bank
UAW suspends jobs bank, delays retiree fund payments – USATODAY.com So this might be the end of the infamous Jobs Bank that we’ve talked about here a lot. When I started working at GM in the mid 90’s as an…
UAW suspends jobs bank, delays retiree fund payments – USATODAY.com So this might be the end of the infamous Jobs Bank that we’ve talked about here a lot. When I started working at GM in the mid 90’s as an…
Business World – WSJ.com — How to Save Detroit And $50 Billion: The Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. column “Business World” in the WSJ is normally a good read. Last week, he wrote about the proposed bailouts (um, assistance) that automakers…
CNBC Link to Show and Online Video I’m setting the DVR from England and will watch this over the internet when time allows (isn’t technology great?). A PR person from CNBC pointed out this show, so I thought I’d suggest…
Industry News: GM To Offer Zero-Percent Financing, Raise Prices, Screen Hummer Buyers It’s very hard to figure out what GM is thinking these days. In the first link above, the Jalopnik blog highlights an inconsistency I also noticed… it’s the…
GM preps for new hires after buyouts This is a particularly sad story. We often debate the proper role of layoffs and headcount reductions in the Lean community. It’s “conventional wisdom” perhaps in the Lean movement that we should not…
From Devin, a graduate student, posted with his permission: “I’m an operations management student who is writing a report on lean manufacturing at GM. However, the more I research, the more I find that there’s far more to write about…

Listen: Here is LeanBlog Podcast #40, an interview with a retired UAW/GM employee who wishes to remain anonymous, at this point. We have traded many emails over the past year, about Lean, and I’m impressed with this individual’s true passion…

So I think things are back to normal after a somewhat stressful day of wondering why my blog “broke.” Unlike some web/blog outages and problems, it wasn’t due to anything I did or tried to change. It just broke. Settings…
Earlier this week, I asked some questions that managers and leaders should ask, prompted by an email I received through the blog. I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve been trying to keep my “no blaming” hat on. Managers are…
GM Expects Car-Price Rise – WSJ.com GM is raising prices: “In December, GM raised its prices an average of 1.5%…” This is great news if you’re an employee, stockholder, or fan of General Motors. This means market demand is strong…
Toyota beats GM in global production; GM No. 1 in global sales So it turns out that GM *sold* more cars than Toyota in 2007, but it’s basically rounding error and a virtual tie (as pointed out well by the…
Marketplace: Supplier gets dwindling sums for its parts This story has been in the blog backlog, but it’s always an important topic, the idea of not just squeezing your suppliers on price. It’s not a good idea to just demand…