Timely supplier delivery keeps assembly moving

GM relies on suppliers located near the Lordstown plant.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
Even though they are five miles away, workers at Comprehensive Logistics know precisely what kind of Cobalt is coming down the line at the Lordstown car plant.
When the car reaches a certain point, information about the car is sent electronically to Comprehensive's plant on Victoria Road in Austintown.
It's Comprehensive's job to get mirrors, door handles, carpets and other parts for that car to Lordstown. Comprehensive receives 61 parts from various other GM suppliers.
Comprehensive is the largest of the four companies that have set up area facilities to supply the car plant. It will have about 400 hourly and salaried workers on the job once full production of the Cobalt starts, said Brad Constantini, company executive director.
Workers gather the proper parts for each car and send them to the Lordstown plant. Parts arrive just two to four hours before they are to be installed on the car's trip down the assembly line.
Contract
The company earlier this year received the contract for this work, called sequencing, and set up operations in the former Tamco Distribution Center.
Comprehensive is using about half of the 700,000-square-foot warehouse, which used to supply Phar-Mor stores when operated by Tamco. After Phar-Mor shut down in 2002, the warehouse was operated briefly by Snyders Drug Stores.
Comprehensive is a subsidiary of Falcon Transportation in Austintown. Comprehensive has about 1,000 employees, including those at the Meridian Road headquarters and at a GM supply plant in Lansing, Mich.
Constantini said the Lordstown car plant used to have a few suppliers handling sequencing work in the area, but General Motors decided to consolidate all of the work into one contract. Comprehensive had been doing a smaller amount of sequencing for the car plant since 1997 from a plant in Lordstown.
Besides sequencing, Comprehensive also is handling the inventory for parts that are needed in bulk quantities, such as gas tanks, fasteners and bolts.
Much of this work was done inside the plant before the Cobalt, but GM moved it to an outside supplier to free up room for the plant's remodeling, Constantini said.
Comprehensive also is doing light assembly on a few Cobalt parts, such as work on brake lines, he said.
Others
The next biggest supplier to locate in the area is Intier Automotive, a Canadian company that built a plant in the Lordstown Industrial Park. It has about 200 workers assembling seats for the Cobalt.
Lear Corp. had been making seats for the Cobalt's predecessor, the Cavalier, at a plant on Bailey Road in Lordstown. Lear is continuing to make other parts for the Cobalt with a smaller work force. Its displaced workers went to work with other suppliers.
Automodular, which is based in Canada, also has built a new plant in the Lordstown Industrial Park. The plant, which employs 55, receives engines that are made elsewhere for the Cobalt, adds some components and ships them to the car plant.
Faurecia Exhaust Systems is operating in a new plant on Bailey Road with 20 employees. It is assembling exhaust systems for the Cobalt.
Faurecia is a Toledo-based subsidiary of a French company. It is occupying a plant that was built by Oakley Industries of Detroit, which was going to handle wheel assemblies for the Cobalt. Negotiations with the United Auto Workers resulted in that work remaining in the car plant, however, so Oakley didn't need the building.
GM and the union negotiated for years on what work would be done outside the plant.
Jim Graham, president of UAW Local 1112 at the car plant, said Intier, Faurecia and another supplier, Metal Dyne in North Canton, have agreed to union contracts and their workers are affiliated with Local 1112. The union is continuing organizing efforts at Automodular, and Comprehensive workers are represented by another union, Graham said.
shilling@vindy.com