LORDSTOWN -- General Motors has honored its Lordstown complex for being its most productive fabricating plant.

LORDSTOWN -- General Motors has honored its Lordstown complex for being its most productive fabricating plant.
The local fabricating plant won the Manager's Manufacturing Council Award, which is given each quarter to the best of GM's 18 fabricating plants in North America. Lordstown won the award for the third and fourth quarters of 2005, said Jim Kaster, president of United Auto Workers Local 1714.
The plant had never won the award before in the award's five-year history, he said. The award evaluates a plant's down time, production speed and quality.
Kaster said the award demonstrates how well workers have implemented a team concept. Union workers approved contract changes to allow the creation of work teams in order for the fabricating plant to receive $230 million worth of new equipment in advance of the launch of the Chevrolet Cobalt.
Rotating and conferring
The team concept includes small groups of workers rotating jobs and conferring with one another to solve production problems.
Kaster also credited John Donahoe, who was appointed manager of the complex in July. He had been plant manager at a GM fabricating plant in Mansfield but now oversees both the production of body parts and the car assembly line in Lordstown.
Kaster said Donahoe has been true to his word that he would not spend too much time in the office. Donahoe comes out to the line in the mornings and talks to workers about issues they are facing in the plant, Kaster said.
"They really respect this guy out there," he said.
The fabricating plant has about 1,600 hourly workers, while the assembly plant has about 3,400.