AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY Report: GM leads its group in productivity

GM had four of the 10 most-productive assembly plants in North America.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
General Motors Corp. topped all domestic automakers in productivity for the third year in a row, a study says.
GM's assembly plants increased their productivity by 5 percent last year, needing an average of 23.61 labor hours to build a vehicle, the Harbour Report said.
Ford's assembly operations posted an average of 25.44 hours, while the Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler needed 26.01 hours.
Nissan, Honda and Toyota posted better numbers than GM, but they don't allow all of their North American plants to be included in the study.
Four of the 10 most-productive assembly plants in North America were GM plants, said the report by Michigan-based Harbour Consulting. Leading the list for the third straight year was Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tenn., which averaged 15.33 hours per car. It makes the Nissan Altima.
Significance of improvement
Harbour said GM's improvement was significant because its productivity has improved 25 percent over the last six years.
"GM's solid progress is the result of lean product and process design, development of common systems and processes, and a strong focus on quality and throughput," said Laurie Harbour-Felax, company vice president.
GM has tagged its common method of running plants its Global Manufacturing System. It was developed on the Japanese model of identifying and fixing problems on the assembly line so that vehicles don't have to be repaired after they are built.
Guy Briggs, group vice president for manufacturing and labor relations, said such manufacturing strategies have helped GM become more efficient, as have new designs that make vehicles easier to build.
"However, significant cost issues, like out-of-control health-care expenses, will not allow us to rest on these accomplishments," he said.
Harbour said GM earned a profit of $178 per vehicle last year, while Ford lost $48 per vehicle and Chrysler lost $496 per vehicle.
Local productivity up
Locally, GM's Lordstown assembly plant improved its productivity 7 percent last year to 21.38 hours. Its ranking fell from second to fourth, however, among the nine subcompact car plants in North America.
The Lordstown plant will launch a new vehicle, the Chevrolet Cobalt, from the Lordstown plant in October. It already has stopped producing the Pontiac Sunfire and will discontinue the Chevrolet Cavalier.
GM hasn't released its productivity targets for the Cobalt.
GM also topped Chrysler and Ford when stamping and powertrain operations are combined with assembly.
GM posted an average of 35.2 hours per vehicle for all operations, which was a 5-percent improvement, compared with 37.42 for Chrysler and 38.6 for Ford. It was the first time Chrysler topped Ford in the overall rankings since the Harbour Report began in 1989.
As for metal stamping plants, Harbour doesn't release results for individual plants, such as the one at GM's Lordstown complex.
Overall, however, GM's stamping operations improved productivity by 6 percent to 3.57 labor hours per vehicle and for the first time was the industry leader in the number of pieces made per hour, with an average of 750. GM's plant in Parma led all stamping plants in that measurement with an average of 1,298.
shilling@vindy.com