GM's Lordstown plant continues to impress

It isn't simply the fact that productivity at General Motors Corp.'s Lordstown assembly plant improved by 13 percent in 2001 over the previous year that makes this news the stuff of front page headlines. What is most significant about the productivity study by Harbour and Associates of Michigan is that the 24.2 labor hours needed to build the Chevrolet Cavalier and the Pontiac Sunfire at Lordstown were below General Motors' average of 26.1 labor hours per vehicle.
That's significant because it delivers a strong message to GM executives in Detroit about the plant's operation. And that is important in the context of the company's proposal for its new generation of compact cars. GM is expected to announce in August where it plans to build the cars, which would replace the top-selling Cavalier and Sunfire.
The Lordstown assembly plant has been identified by high-ranking company officials as the front-runner for the new product, but the individuals who will make the final decision aren't willing to commit themselves.
Billion-dollar project
Local and state government officials had expected an announcement this month, but the company said a delay was necessary because the relatively new chief of the small-car division wanted to fine-tune some aspects of the $1 billion project.
The Harbour report on productivity answers all questions the decision-makers may have on the ability of Lordstown autoworkers to produce a high-quality, competitively priced compact car.
"This is further proof that we are continuing to run the business better in Lordstown," said Dan Flores, a GM spokesman.
Flores should have added that a 13 percent improvement in the plant's productivity, along with an earlier report that the quality of the Cavalier and Sunfire had improved 24 percent from 2000 to 2001, makes it all but impossible for the company not to build its new cars in the Mahoning Valley.
The $500 million the company would spend on remodeling the plant, along with a $230 million upgrade of the adjacent fabrication plant, would not only be a major boost to the region's economy but would guarantee GM's presence in the Valley for years to come.
Although the new product would require a smaller workforce than the current 4,700 hourly and salaried workers in the assembly plant and 2,500 in the fabricating plant, the complex would still boast one of the largest payrolls in the Valley.
"GM's performance in The Harbour Report 2002 measures is a direct result of the company's commitment to building a strong foundation in lean manufacturing," says Ron Harbour, president of Harbour and Associates.
And one of the chief builders of that foundation is the Lordstown assembly plant in the Mahoning Valley.