Word: buick
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...outright hostility, and many line workers cling resolutely to the Old World: a rigid, adversarial system characterized by strict seniority rules and a crippling multiplicity of job classifications. The result is a patchwork of different systems among GM plants, many of which are light-years behind the highly efficient Buick City factory in Flint, Mich., where the Buick LeSabre is produced. Overall, GM has made virtually no gains in productivity and remains the highest-cost automaker in the U.S. In fact, the company has been losing money on its North American carmaking plants for several years...
...perceive it yet. While GM still lags behind most Japanese manufacturers in overall quality, its cars have 53% fewer defects than they had only five years ago, a fact the company is just beginning to tout in its advertisements. Some of GM's car lines actually beat the Japanese. Buick, for example, ranked fifth in the most recent J.D. Power survey of initial quality, placing the GM division ahead of Honda, Nissan, Acura and BMW, among others. The Buick LeSabre model placed ahead of the Acura Legend, Honda Accord and Nissan Maxima on the Power list of the most trouble...
...most damaging change in GM's 1984 reorganization was probably the dismantling of its two huge, parochial divisions, Fisher Body and GM Assembly. GM created in their place two integrated divisions, now called Buick- Oldsmobile-Cadillac (BOC) and Chevrolet-Pontiac-GM of Canada (CPC). The move may have made financial sense, but it diminished what automakers call brand character by centralizing design and engineering operations...
...manufacturing a car is about as far from the people who sell it as you can possibly get," says Manhattan auto analyst Maryann Keller. "One of the most poignant things lost in the reorganization was the loyalty of individuals to brands. People missed being part of Olds and Buick, and it shows...
Under the reorganization, the Cutlass Supreme was subsumed into the $5 billion GM-10 project, which also developed versions of the Buick Regal and the Pontiac Grand Prix, all of which shared components with one another. In spite of GM's huge investment in retooling and reorganization, the result was a car line that has failed to excite consumers. Further weakened by a slumping U.S. auto market, the Olds Cutlass has turned into a money loser...