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What Happened When Automation Came To General Motors? (qz.com)
General Motors was once the world's most profitable company -- for two decades -- and by 1970 its revenue was $22.8 billion (or $152 billion in today's dollars). But five weeks ago GM announced that it was finally ending small-car production and closing its Lordstown Assembly plant in Youngstown, Ohio.
So what went wrong? Quartz argues that GM's decline "began with its quest to turn people into machines," as "the company turned assembly work into an interlocking chain of discrete tasks, to be executed by robots whenever possible." In an article shared by Slashdot reader reporter, Quartz argues that seen in that light, the company's response to a 1972 strike "marked the beginning of the company's long but uneven descent, which would be characterized by a repeated impulse to bet on fancy, futuristic but unproven technologies while undervaluing its workers."
But the strike also raised larger issues for "a massive special task force" issuing a federal report on the quality of working life in 1972, titled Work in America... [T]echnology had failed in its promise to free humans from drudgery and wring profit from their talents, the authors said. On the contrary, the new jobs created generally required minimal expertise and therefore prevented workers from honing their skills. That stymied career mobility and left people mired in the same torpor of boredom for decades. Despite this, America continued to offer its young people increasingly rigorous education -- even as work life left little opportunity to apply it.... The larger hopes and ambitions of Work in America -- the vision that saw satisfying work itself as essential to the health of American society and democracy -- exists now as little but a curio in the footnotes of academic journals....
Meanwhile, GM continued to lavish spending on big capital investments, confident that the secret to competitiveness lay in replacing humans with technology. But as in Lordstown, the spending bore little fruit. As automotive analyst Maryann Keller recounted in her 1989 book Rude Awakening, one GM executive observed that, between 1980 and 1985, the company shelled out an eye-popping $45 billion in capital investment. Despite that spending, its global market share rose by but a single percentage point, to 22%. "For the same amount of money, we could buy Toyota and Nissan outright," said the executive -- which would have instantly bumped GM's market share to 40%.
At GM quality suffered because "Instead of making flawless cars, workers simply did their assigned jobs," Quartz argues. "Workers had no big-picture goal of building cars together to motivate them."
The 7,000-word article concludes by noting that Youngstown residents still hope that their car factory will re-open. But it's also possible that instead Lordstown Assembly "will remain standing, but empty, a vast roadside reminder of a corporate elite's doomed quest to cheapen labor by stripping the human need for skill, learning, independence, and purpose out of production, by reimagining people as machines."
So what went wrong? Quartz argues that GM's decline "began with its quest to turn people into machines," as "the company turned assembly work into an interlocking chain of discrete tasks, to be executed by robots whenever possible." In an article shared by Slashdot reader reporter, Quartz argues that seen in that light, the company's response to a 1972 strike "marked the beginning of the company's long but uneven descent, which would be characterized by a repeated impulse to bet on fancy, futuristic but unproven technologies while undervaluing its workers."
But the strike also raised larger issues for "a massive special task force" issuing a federal report on the quality of working life in 1972, titled Work in America... [T]echnology had failed in its promise to free humans from drudgery and wring profit from their talents, the authors said. On the contrary, the new jobs created generally required minimal expertise and therefore prevented workers from honing their skills. That stymied career mobility and left people mired in the same torpor of boredom for decades. Despite this, America continued to offer its young people increasingly rigorous education -- even as work life left little opportunity to apply it.... The larger hopes and ambitions of Work in America -- the vision that saw satisfying work itself as essential to the health of American society and democracy -- exists now as little but a curio in the footnotes of academic journals....
Meanwhile, GM continued to lavish spending on big capital investments, confident that the secret to competitiveness lay in replacing humans with technology. But as in Lordstown, the spending bore little fruit. As automotive analyst Maryann Keller recounted in her 1989 book Rude Awakening, one GM executive observed that, between 1980 and 1985, the company shelled out an eye-popping $45 billion in capital investment. Despite that spending, its global market share rose by but a single percentage point, to 22%. "For the same amount of money, we could buy Toyota and Nissan outright," said the executive -- which would have instantly bumped GM's market share to 40%.
At GM quality suffered because "Instead of making flawless cars, workers simply did their assigned jobs," Quartz argues. "Workers had no big-picture goal of building cars together to motivate them."
The 7,000-word article concludes by noting that Youngstown residents still hope that their car factory will re-open. But it's also possible that instead Lordstown Assembly "will remain standing, but empty, a vast roadside reminder of a corporate elite's doomed quest to cheapen labor by stripping the human need for skill, learning, independence, and purpose out of production, by reimagining people as machines."
They didn't melt down - and they had the same basic internals with automation and labor. It was GM's belief it was "too big to fail" and its poor designs for 15 years that killed it. The hallmark of much of manufacturing is to treat people as "assigned job robots" so that they can do their one job really well - but to throw an exception when they see something related to their job that is wrong. It wasn't what TFA is talking about at all - it was GM's arrogant leadership.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The same reason that most profitable car companies are now relocating into Right To Work states. The unions latched onto GM like a vampire and drained it of it's life force.
GM's decline came when they started making crappy, low gas mileage cars and ignored the Japanese's well built, high mileage cars. Toyota, Nissan and even Hyundai produce decent cars with lots of automation.
GM's suits don't like paying to build quality except in Trucks where the higher profit margins mean they can spend a little more (and even there they lag behind Ford & Toyota). They'd rather chase short term profits and let the Government bail them out every 10 years because they know we need their factories in case we need to ramp up for war.
And tech didn't free us from drudgery because we didn't let it. Instead of cutting our work weeks we used the improvements in productivity to lay people off, reducing the demand for labor and then using the reduction in demand to cut wages (yes folks, supply and demand work both ways). Based on productivity gains (real ones, e.g. manufacturing and farm outputs, measured productivity is kind of iffy because it includes the largely make-work service sector economy) we should be working 20-30 hours a week tops but we're pushing over 50. Stupid motherf*ing puritanicals...
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The entire premise of this summary is almost completely wrong, in almost every point made.
I guess that's what happens when someone that doesn't understand an industry writes about it.
I've worked at multiple companies where a VP goes with a vendor, buying 10s of millions of dollars of network gear, then goes to work for them after a year or 2, after the hardware is deployed.
Theres always seems to be some kickbacks, wouldn't doubt some GM execs went to go work for those manufacturing/robot vendors after buying billions in equipment.
Everybody else was automating too, if they stood still or went backwards towards more manual processes they'd be long since dead. Besides, automation is a bottom-up process, you automate the simplest, most routine operations freeing up people to do more complex tasks. If they couldn't grok it 50 years ago, they should see what assembly line work was like 100 years ago. There was competition and they lost, simple as that. A lot of people reason like things were great, we made changes, then things were shit, so the changes were shit. That happens too, but sometimes the world is changing around you and you can either try to roll with it or bury your head in the sand and hope for a miracle.
Despite all the "you get what you pay for" trash talking the truth is that automation is often really good at pushing out thousands of almost identical objects. Sure those objects can be built flimsy and cut safety margins to sell even cheaper, but that's a problem with the market and not the tool. Maybe I'm just exceptionally lucky but I find it's really rare that I find something that's a manufacturing defect. It's usually either a design flaw meaning they all got it or it's transport damage somewhere between the factory and me. Of course nothing is ever without exception, but unless it's like really unique handmade piece of art you don't get special attention with manual labor either it's just dull routine work.
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It angers me to no end that we bailed out GM. If anything, GM is proof that no business is too big to fail and we should have let GM completely implode. So now GM is going back to building gas-guzzlers instead of responsible, (more) environmentally friendly smaller cars. GM and the other companies that got bailed out are proof that we practice a form of welfare called wealthcare. We had to protect the billionaire class and I am fucking sick of it.
Yes, GM invested in automation but so did its competitors.
The main problem was twofold. Bad leadership that couldn't look further than end of quarter results and labor unions that forced companies to keep people in the same torpor of drudgery rather than uptrain the good ones and fire the bad ones. GM still can't fire workers until they have to close down the entire factory, so you end up with line workers being bored most of the day as they meet their quota faster and faster due to automation.
Japanese car companies on the other hand invented the kanban board and people with the right skills and motivation drifted to the top, the rest fell to the wayside.
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Once the chinese unions start mobilizing in force the chinese elite will move production to Youngstown, or Africa. The government will probably flee to Taiwan.
On the management side, G.M. had competing brands wit their own bureaucracies and managers, fighting each-other for R&D budgets, production resources, marketing dollars and more. It wasn't Buick against Mercury, but rather Buick against Oldsmobile, Chevy and Cadillac. It wasn't Camaro vs Mustang but Camaro vs Firebird.
And it was the union vs the company. Any proposed changes came with significant concessions to the union, or with a strike.
Take the Saturn effort... which was designed to be "clean-sheet" (rather than badge-engineered clones, such as the above-mentioned Camaro/Firebird.) The Union forced GM to cede significant control to the union, even before the factory opened, including:
That's what killed G.M. Not automation, but the combined culture of competing accountants and a greedy-and-hostile monopoly for the labor (UAW), both of whom could only act on relatively short timeframes.
> ! If you want to work 20-30 hours per week
If you wanted to, you could work 20-30 hours a week and have a single 20" TV connected to an antenna with no monthly charges like your parents or grandparents did at your age, rather than multiple 60" TVs streaming Netflix. Here in Dallas there are about 50 broadcast TV stations you can get without paying anyone a dime.
You can have a 950 sq foot house like your parents or grandparents had, instead of 2,400 sq feet. You could have one family car instead of two or three, and plan your weekly errand trip to do everything in one trip, saving money on gas, wear and tear on the car, etc. You can put the bread in the toaster yourself and toss an egg in the microwave (or stove) for 35 cents instead of paying McDonald's right times as much. Same food, just 85% lower cost.
Some people live only 30% better than their parents, having 50 broadcast stations instead of three or four, and work 20-30 hours. It's fairly easy to do if you want to, and you look up how on the internet, perhaps joining one of the forums where people who do that share ideas. Others similarly work 40 hours while saving 65% of their income for retirement, so they only have to work 10-15 years in their life. That's an option, a choice people have.
Personally, I don't go that far, but I use some of those ideas in moderation. I make coffee at home for 25 cents instead of paying $4.50 for a cup of coffee - a savings of 95%. I shopped and found the best value package for TV and internet, without any premium channels. 120 channels is enough for me; I don't need 250 channels. I bought a house for 40% less than the banks say I can afford. It's still 3,500 sq feet, though, so I plan to downsize this summer.
At some point reading the full article became pointless
The reason they get paid huge amounts is supposed to be because MANAGEMENT are responsible. THEY must deal with every problem; however, corporate culture always rewarded the people who were talented at shifting blame away from themselves (and taking credit for others... the culture got worse too.)
So we have administrations loaded with people who do not take responsibility publicly or privately and even spend $$$ promoting blame on others. It is to the point today where you have organizations blaming their customers/users for not liking their dictates (think of software companies pointless UI changes.) You don't even need MBA training in sociopathy to pick up the habits anymore.
The unions are NOT the problem; they don't get much say - even if they promote stupid, management has to own it because the decisions are made by them. Externalizing costs is more than outsourcing; it's the MBA philosophy for everything. Workflows get mechanized into "legos" so it is easy to swap out low skill workers and never be at their mercy; additionally, it makes automation far easier. Same lessons were not being learned by industrial revolution are not being learned today. You think the MBA reads history? They don't have to think, just play office and investor politics (today PC babies are a new factor in the political game.)
The real purpose for a company is to provide gainful employment; despite that not being explicitly or culturally stated anymore. Look at all the socialist arguments used by the champions of capitalism-- and the reason people support it is because the flawed system produced the best results for the most people. Today, it's a religion with zero thought except to defend emotional attachment to a brand... like how religion to many is merely a brand name you identify with (or politics.) The purpose is long forgotten and it's popularity is running on fumes. It keeps getting worse until the majority fully wakes up. Look at Trump and the dimwitted and cowardly Republicans; he is just a symptom of a social cancer... remove the Tumor without addressing the cancer and another one predictably happens... progressively worse each time until death.
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I don't get it. If automation killed Lordtown, where is the loss? People are upset that GM is turning off the machines? Is there any human loss here? Too many questions brought up in this article.
It doesn't matter how much you spend on assembly robots if your designs are terrible. GM products were hobbled by bean-counter approved materials and poor engineering.
No amount of automation can save a bad design.
There is a hidden assumption here that corrupts that statistic. "If GM had not made the investment, there would have been NO change in their global market share."
This is important, because without considering that, "22%" has no point of reference. The assumption is the reference is 0% - "no change". The likely reality here though is that their competitors (new and existing) were also automating, and had they not done so also, they would have lost market share. Ignoring this makes it look like the $45B was wasted with almost zero return. The reality is that at least some of that money helped them maintain their market share. GM's investment looks a lot more intelligent if you assume instead they would have, for example, lost 15% market share had they not made that investment.
And this is just one of many ways people like with statistics.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
But five weeks ago GM announced that it was finally ending small-car production and closing its Lordstown Assembly plant in Youngstown, Ohio.
So what went wrong? ... Quartz argues that GM's decline "began with its quest to turn people into machines," as "the company turned assembly work into an interlocking chain of discrete tasks, to be executed by robots whenever possible."
So the author here seems to think that GM should be keeping its Ohio plant open, producing small cars and employing more people and less automation. This is self-contradictory.
Most people who choose to buy a small car (ignoring enthusiast/performance cars - which are unchanged) over an SUV do so because of price. So if you employ more people you make the small car more expensive and most everyone opts for the SUV. If you employ more automation and fewer people (and foreign people) you can produce the small car cheaper, but the article (and the American public) doesn't want that either.
You can have a 950 sq foot house like your parents or grandparents had,...
Good luck with that! Maybe in some crappy neighborhood with crappy schools in Detroit or somewhere. But where I live, a starter home is 2,400 sq/ft. On the good side of town with the good schools, $400K starting for a one story ranch - if you can find it because they are being raised for $700K+ McMansions.
The America that our grandparents lived in is long gone for most of America. Maybe in some fly-over state that has no economic opportunities other than agri-welfare and meth dealing you can get that kind of house.
And my grandfather had a union job with a pension, was able to support a family of 7, buy a house and a car, had medical and dental coverage and a solid middle class lifestyle on one blue collar income!
In my grandparents' day, working hard was almost a guarantee of the American Dream for everyone. Now, it's just for the elite.
The GM plant in town is mostly been demolished now and 2018 was a good year for the city, so FU GM.
I suspect poor sales of the Impala and Cruze had a lot to do with it. Plus GM's pursuit of cheap.
Impala - $40K for a common package. Though listed as a larger car than the Camry, Mazda 6 or Altima. Those are about $10K less and let's face it, the Camry shows up on the "cars most likely to last 200K" list. The Impala doesn't. When I saw the price of the Impala I had to ask "what were they thinking?"
Cruze - not sure on price. I was considering it, but until 2018, it wasn't exceptional in quality or style. Compare that to a similarly priced Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Toyota and it will probably get outshined.
What they did stick with is the Spark - made in Korea, I think they are sticking with the Sonic - I believe made in Michigan. I see it as these are both very cute cars and probably still move in sales. For me the only hold back on those is the quality issues. When I get to that point of buying another car, if the Sonic is still made in the U.S. it will be on my list.
My suspicion is we will see new small models coming from Mexico where steel tariffs won't exist and labor is quite cheap.
However, let's be honest, SUV's are selling well and today's fuel prices are encouraging that trend to continue.
Those Saturns were the best cars GM ever made though...
My grandparents had a 2 story house with a ton of bedrooms (I forget how many, I was pretty young when we moved out west from them). And they were working class. They had an Atari 2600 around launch. Adjusted for inflation, at $700 bucks. Now, my Granddad died of a heart attack in his mid 50s because the tech wasn't there to fix him, but he also didn't spend $1000/mo on healthcare to survive and didn't have a medical bankrupcy, he just died.
As for the 20" TV, again, in their day they had one, and it would have been about $1000 bucks in today's money. We're talking 40 years ago, inflation's a bitch. Today I can buy a 50" TV for around $300 2018 dollars. And the PS4 launched at $400 4 years ago, almost half what the 2600 did.
Wages are down about 20% what my grandad did across all jobs except for CEO of a fortune 500. Good paying (and unionized) manufacturing jobs like what my granddad had either were automated away or shipped overseas, sending folks to low pay service sector jobs in their place and further depressing wages. Meanwhile George Bush Jr deregulated the commodities market allowing parasitic investors to buy large quantities of food without ever taking delivery of said food. So they "buy" a million hog bellies and then "sell" them, effectively skimming 10-15% off you and me and driving up the price of food. And then there's Reagan & Clinton, who allowed stock buy backs. Those used to be an illegal market manipulation. Every been fired when the stock market had a minor dip? You can thank Reagan & Clinton for that and the perverse incentive they created for short term stock gains
The entire economy is rigged against working class Americans. It's hard to come to grips with that because when we were kid's we were taught that it wasn't. That you could do anything you set your mind to thanks to the wonders of capitalism. If it's one thing the ruling class knows and understand it's "get 'em while they're young". They do it with religion and they do it with economics. Christ, there's a line about it in the bible.
Please, please start thinking these things through. Guys like you, who've drunk the kool-aid, need to come to your senses and see how you're being taken advantage of and run into the ground for nothing in return.
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And the unions made Saturn uneconomical. The result? No more Saturn.
Do I think all union auto workers are just "parasites"? No.... That's utter crap. A company's most valuable asset is its labor, and there wouldn't BE any profitable companies using union labor if they weren't able to benefit from it.
With GM, I think they have a multitude of problems. For starters, they tried to offer too big a variety of vehicles. Every new vehicle you add to the product line is a huge up-front R&D expense and a risk it might not even sell well. After that, it has the negative impact of requiring you keep a parts inventory for it (typically for many years after you stop building it). And if you don't keep refreshing all of those models, the older ones you keep selling become non-competitive.
Second? I think they're making a big mistake, right now, by not changing focus to electric vehicles. Now is NOT the time to stop making cars like the Volt. GM was one of the pioneers of the modern EV, when they first built the EV-1 vehicles that eventually all got dumped in landfills and forgotten about. I think that was just a product built to appease politicians at the time, and didn't make economic sense. But that was back in the 1990's. A lot has changed since then.
But absolutely, GM has a long history of selling cars with "fit and finish" problems. Some of that is poor engineering or cost-cutting in the wrong places. But some of that is also thanks to union auto-workers who didn't take enough pride in doing quality work. They just wanted to "punch a card" and get paid for showing up and doing the minimum. (I knew some of these guys personally. They'd tell me stories of how guys would get mad at a boss over whatever, and retaliate by dropping a ball bearing down in the door assembly of a new car or truck before it was finished -- to ensure it always had a rattle.... stuff like that.)
I'm not saying you'd end all of that with non-union labor. You wouldn't.... But there's generally less fear of losing your job if you're part of a collective who bargains on your behalf.
GM is bleeding thanks to a thousand paper cuts, more than just ONE person or issue you could try to point a finger at.
I've worked on automation installations in factories all over North America.
Tesla has the most arrogant, exploitative management.
Toyota has some of the most humble, helpful leadership.
GM still has many layers of management but also a lot of know how and experience. GM still seems sized to be a global powerhouse, even though they are losing market.
Tesla's recent efforts to hit production targets would never happen at GM. GM could scale up manufacturing in a matter of months, very effectively. GM has a much better relationship with suppliers too.
I don't think GM is doing so poorly now as you might think. Their recent adjustment makes sense.
Some other observations:
GM was hit by a big UAW strike in January of 2008, just before the 2008 recession started. Nobody points to the strike as a cause of the recession, but I think it was a big factor. Once the strike hit, the writing was on the proverbial wall that GM wasn't going to make it, which created a chain recaction. If GM was on track to go bankrupt and not pay suppliers, then the suppliers are going to go under too, impacting other automakers costs. The strike started a chain reaction.
Working at a GM plant as a UAW worker looks to be mind numbing. And the workers are pretty much immune to firing. Nobody expects too much from them. Workers at other mfg plants seemed more engaged and much more concerned about keeping their jobs.
GM took the bailout money and used it build plants in China that were half owned by the Chinese government.
GM cars are boring and expensive. The quality is very competitive. But, they don't make a profit on the cars. The Korean imports are cheaper and also high quality. When Chinastarts to export cars at scale, it won't make sense to build cars in the USA anymore. Why invest in more car building?
As long as gas prices are low, all the US profits are in trucks. GM needs to beat Toyota and Ford in the truck segment.
GM has been a victim of unbalanced trade taxes between other countries for decades.
GM has a very interesting and promising new car rental company that is kind of like Uber and kind of like airBnB.
In my opinion, GM has been a good company. They struggle to move quickly because of legacy issues mostly imposed by government in a different century... They have legacy issues with labor, legacy issues with mindset, legacy issues with regulations, legacy issues with tariffs, and legacy issues with overcapacity.
The rapid change they just made to cut off money losing plants that was overcapacity is actually a good thing and a sign of progress.
Good luck with that! Maybe in some crappy neighborhood with crappy schools in Detroit or somewhere. But where I live, a starter home is 2,400 sq/ft. On the good side of town with the good schools, $400K starting for a one story ranch - if you can find it because they are being raised for $700K+ McMansions.
You're missing the point if you can't see past your local neighborhood.
The America that our grandparents lived in is long gone for most of America. Maybe in some fly-over state that has no economic opportunities other than agri-welfare and meth dealing you can get that kind of house.
And my grandfather had a union job with a pension, was able to support a family of 7, buy a house and a car, had medical and dental coverage and a solid middle class lifestyle on one blue collar income!
I live in "fly-over country" and support a family of 6 on a single income. Putting away 30-40% for retirement. Working a job I qualified for based on a state university education and experience. $200K for a 2,000 sq/ft house. Decent schools. Major metro area about an hour away for those who want to commute. Plenty of dual-income households doing just fine for those who want to work in the local economy.
In my grandparents' day, working hard was almost a guarantee of the American Dream for everyone. Now, it's just for the elite.
There are successful people out there who started worse off than your present situation. If you can't find examples to emulate, you're not looking hard enough.
Didn't Ford just announce that they are no longer doing any cars in North America except for the Mustang? The real reason GM is ending small cars in the US is because people don't want to buy them. A low-end car such as a Cruze STARTS at $18k for a new one. These cars cost too much and have driven people who can't afford them down into used cars, which are lasting a lot longer than the cars from 20 years ago used to.
While I think your point is generally well made (our expectations of living standard have evolved over the generations), I think it overlooks the fact that most 20-30 hour a week jobs don't pay enough for you to buy any kind of house, even a 950 sq foot one, and certainly not one in a neighborhood that you would want to live in. (You can get pretty cheap houses in Detroit right now, but why would you?)
Being frugal is good, but it cannot completely compensate for the reality that there are three times as many people in this nation now than there were in the fifties, all competing for the same resources. I cannot quote a study for this (although I would love to see one), but I think this manifests itself in a sort of parasitic drag on the economy, as more and more people try to get a piece of every pie. It is frankly impossible to buy a home like they used to sell in the fifties. It would not be up to code.
You made me curious enough to see if it was possible, and I found this article, which is an interesting read. Note the obstacles they encountered in building a cheap home were not physical, but systemic: https://www.fastcompany.com/3056129/this-house-costs-just-20000-but-its-nicer-than-yours
"It was GM's ... poor designs for 15 years that killed it." -- from the parent comment.
The poor designs were at least partially deliberate, apparently. Most car buyers weren't knowledgeable about cars. The bad designs made more money for GM car dealers. The dealers wanted more work, so they wanted more failures. The dealers would make huge amounts of money and would pay for expensive local advertising.
A friend of mine who was also 14 years old then, and who had a father who was an excellent mechanic, suggested we ride our bikes to the places where GM and Ford stored their cars when they arrived in the local area. My friend demonstrated sloppy GM design. Then we went and looked at Ford cars. They were much better designed and built.
Back when car buying became very popular in the U.S., and many years later, it was See the USA, in your Chevrolet".
My understanding is that now the best car manufacturer is Toyota. My understanding is that cars designed in the U.S. are far more likely to fail.
10 Least Reliable Cars -- Consumer Reports' annual survey exposes the models with the greatest risks of problems. (Oct. 24, 2018 )
The U.S. has laws that prevent car manufacturers from selling directly!!! One story: Tesla US dealership disputes. Amazing!!! Laws that help car dealers make more money. Quoting that Wikipedia article:
"48 states have laws that limit or ban manufacturers from selling vehicles directly to consumers, and although Tesla has no independent dealerships, dealership associations in multiple states have filed numerous lawsuits against Tesla, to prevent the company from selling cars."
I have about 20 years of experience working with GM. This is what I think: GM has a disproportionally large number of managers, a lot of the managers are incompetent retrogrades and most of then only are worried about their own well-being and completely ignore company goals. Endless meetings, where incompetent managers talking to each other and wasting the time of competent people. Most of the managers are afraid of decision making and often make often bad (and safe) decisions; lower level managers are afraid to argue with bosses and have to live with bad decisions knowing that it is bad for the company. This is what causes all the GM problems.
make trumpytown fail again.
It was GM's management misapplying it.
GM used robotics to try and replace top talent. Why? Because they are costly. But it is the top talent, such as tool makers, where you get your real innovation. So, GM's management was/is killing its own innovation. We see the same issue throughout America with exporting of jobs. What is left are jobs that can not be exported and even the high-end jobs on these have been replaced with illegals, who then send the bulk of the money out of the nation.
GM should be looking at Tesla. Musk is doing things right. And rather than claim that GM is better than Tesla (which they do all the time), they would be better to acknowledge that Tesla is destroying them, like the German's have, and then try to learn from tesla. Tesla's model Y, will likely be the most automated vehicle ever done. And knowing Musk, he has almost certainly disobeyed his board and is now designing the car to be much less expensive than the M3. Both in Design, and build.
GM needs to learn from that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's not even true at all. Saturn union's original contract was 80% of the UAW contract until the early 2000s when it was already in trouble. So in 2003, the Saturn workers voted to return to the full UAW contract. The problem with Saturn is that the execs and competing divisions were fucking jealous and did everything they could to force them to fail. GM's management did not want to be shown up by the "startup" side of things and did everything they could to sabotage it. And then they blamed the union.
because they are being razed for $700K+ McMansions.
FTFY.
On the management side, G.M. had competing brands wit their own bureaucracies and managers, fighting each-other for R&D budgets, production resources, marketing dollars and more. It wasn't Buick against Mercury, but rather Buick against Oldsmobile, Chevy and Cadillac. It wasn't Camaro vs Mustang but Camaro vs Firebird.
The competing brands were just marketing groups. Engineering and manufacturing were all consolidated long ago (e.g. most vehicles are made by GMAD - General Motors Assembly Division).
a greedy-and-hostile monopoly for the labor (UAW)
Correct. Labor laws in this country give an overwhelming advantage to unions. UAW strategy was always to take most of the profits, and leave just enough for the company to remain in business. It was inevitable that eventually a big recession would leave the auto companies insolvent.
The ranch houses in Dallas, built in the 50s, were about 2400 sq ft. In Dallas your parents likely owned such a house. What size should someone currently aspire to in Dallas?
I don't have a TV, no Internet access at home, I grow much of my own food, have a 10 year old netbook that was $200 new* that replaced a laptop that I bought used off ebay 15 years before-- I live frugally.
I still cannot reduce my work to 50% time, and still be able to ever retire. I did reduce my work to 10 months out of the year, because life is too short to waste your prime years being nothing but a wage slave for the profit of some parasite capitalist.
* and the most monetarily valuable thing in my home.
I don't know all of the factors leading up to GM's situation, but I do not think it's about factory workmanship. I think it's more about poor designs and cheap parts. In the last 18 years I've been driving Hondas putting on ~140K to 160 K miles before getting a different one. Almost no repairs. No wheel bearings, no alternators, no mufflers, no A/C pumps, no water pumps, no timing belts. None of that.
Friends driving GM Terrains are getting new wheel bearings at 40 K miles, new mufflers at 50 K. Dodge Caravans have the headlights turn off for no reason, not due to wiring, mind you, but due to bugs in SW. And its $50 bucks to upload the new bug fixed SW at the dealer. Grrrr..
A friend of mine told me she was happy with her Ford Taurus because She got 90K miles before she had to get a new wheel bearing and she was glad to use the extended warrant ( $1600!!!) she bought. WTF!
Personally I'm glad to not need repairs, and to not buy that warranty.
I've had to do only two non-normal maintenance repairs on Hondas in the last 18 years. I had paint flaking on a 1 year old car. Dealer repainted at no cost to me. I had brake lines rust out on a 15 year old Honda that had 150K miles. ( I live in snow country where they salt the roads. ) That's it.
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
But absolutely, GM has a long history of selling cars with "fit and finish" problems.
If anything, that's an understatement. My extended family went through a rather stupid amount of GM cars in the 80s and 90s, and the vast majority were stinkers. The thing is, they were relatively cheap compared to other cars, at least in our area, and we weren't exactly rich.
I have lots of memories of trying to repair those cars, trucks, and vans. Lots of memories dealing with all the stupid issues, parts which failed repeatedly, and all the irritations that come with lots of lemons. And those memories made it so I've never bought a GM vehicle in my adult life, and I've got no plans to ever do so.
Sure, maybe GM changed, and maybe they now make great vehicles. I really don't care. There are plenty of companies in the world who make vehicles which haven't made my life miserable that I can choose from instead.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Filter your home search by 'No HOAs'. Or you will regret it.
Gets you old construction and square streets. Not some shitty subdivision full of that wonderful new construction and busybody assholes.
It will also get you the occasional 1000 square foot house on a horse property. Most will have rooms added by now, but not all.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Lol.
Neither Ford nor GM will be making cars for North America. They have ceded that to the imports. The import tariffs are 3 to 4% to import a car to the US.
Ford and GM are focused on pickups and SUVs. The imports cannot compete very well. The import tariffs are 20 to 25% for a pickup / SUV .
Essentially neither Ford nor GM can compete in their home turf without substantial tariffs.
Thus the large car production facilities are no longer needed.
at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay the mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."!
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well said, sir.
Anecdotes like "new wheel bearings" and "lights turn off for no reason" can probably be found for every car manufacturer. A friend bought a new CR-V and had bizarre problems with the headlights for months and thinks it has the worst engine of any car he's ever had. My sister absolutely loves her CR-V. I've got a couple 2005 Dodges with 140K-plus miles on them that have never had anything but routine maintenance (oil changes, tires, brakes, etc.). OTOH, a friend of mine got a new Dodge the same time I did and within months had a blown engine. He got it replaced, and about a year later had another blown engine. To me that says more about the driver than the car, but YMMV.
Add to that the fact that I bet your grandpa didnt insist on buying a fancy apartment the day he could scrape together a minimum off-plan deposit.
Before your grandpa was later-middle age I also bet:
He didnt buy a new car every 3 years 'because that helps the economy'
He didnt drink $5 cafe coffee.
He didnt have a $1000 phone, and a pile of other 'toys' to make him feel better about himself.
He didnt go on overseas holidays.
He didnt buy things on credit.
In other words: he had personal responsiblilty and restraint, and worked towards the future.
Now, BOTH sides actually matter. The middle class is being financially raped by a combination of low interest rates and high real inflation which is lied about.
At the same time they have bought in totally to rampant consumerism.
Its a double edged sword.
.
Amazon Warehouse Worker
Yep... I was trying to give GM the benefit of the doubt, as much as possible, on that one. In the 1980's, everyone seemed to figure out their vehicles were shoddy junk. I mean, literally every friend of mine had parents who bought at least one or two GM vehicles and proceeded to have horror stories about how often they broke down.
I believe they improved significantly since then. But the interiors are still a weak spot for them.
hopelessly deluded as Socialism. The beancounters think the companies success is dependent upon them, and the beancounter wannabees think they can analyze a business from the beancounter point of view. Manufacturing companies succeed when they make a product that the customers want. When they can't do that, the beancounters strangle them slowly, usually to extinction. TFS suggests the author is as clueless as he is deluded.
His 2nd go was awesome and Apple became a powerhouse. But his 1st go nearly killed Apple and he was tossed out.
So, which is he? Exceptional leader or value killing loser? He did both at various times.
Posting arcticles critical of robotics? Arguing against technological progress? Crying for the days of people cranking bolts all day long for a living?
This is slashdot now? Pathetic.
GM makes great pickup trucks. Sure, they have had problems, but so've Ford and Chrysler. Overall I prefer driving Fords, and working on Chevys. There's also no denying that the LS motor is an absolute peach. But I'd really rather have a Toyota than either one...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Understand the new production line methods and what improvements they offered metal work and engine design.
Don't just use robots to produce 20 year old car designs with less union workers.
Quality control.
Make the new cars look good, drive well, be efficient and pass on the new technology to people buying new cars.
10 and 20 year old car parts resold every decade as a new "looking" car is not a new car design.
Learn from what was working and not working well in a France, Italy, West/Germany, Japan, South Korea.
Why their really great cars could start in cold weather. Why their cars rusted.
Make sure the "car" can work in hot and cold conditions.
Ensure the feeling of "power" a car owner wants to buy into is actually offered by the brand.
Stop putting 20-30 year old engine tech that cant keep up in a "new" car at new car design prices.
Robots can make really good quality cars, sell that improved quality.
Get the paint work, shut lines, electrics right.
The US missed every vital step to change to and use robotics.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Indeed, it's these lazy kids who are responsible for the massive devaluation of the dollar's buying worth since their grandparents time. They deserve to have their climate destroyed, that'll teach 'em!
There is no mention of the billions GM put into hydrogen cars.
I recall being in high school and watching a movie made many years before about working in a car plant. It involved a guy that had been working at the plant for many years and was now working on some machine where all he did was X all day long.
At one point a new worker asks for his advice working a spot welder because he knew the protagonist had worked it for many years, and our hero tells him there's a trick to it they don't teach you and shows him how to do it. Then the foreman arrives and tells the hero to piss off and shows the kid the Factor Way. The movie ended with a family being given a tour of the plant and the hero having a breakdown and yelling that all they cared about was the number of hands you had and that they should just pay you based on that.
The movie was apparently made in the 1950s or early 60s. There was very little "automation" in the modern sense, and zero robots, yet every problem being dumped on robots in this paper clearly existed in the same form and apparently even greater magnitude. Again, this is from about *60 to 70 years ago*, long before this paper begins.
It's true that GM car sales have declined to the point that GM doesn't want to be in the business any more. That's because Toyota and Honda captured the US car market by focusing on quality. Toyota and Honda use the same robotic process as GM.
On the other hand, GM's truck business is doing fine. Is this segment less automated than cars?
Why are we picking on GM's decline, such as it is? If robots were the cause, wouldn't all the manufacturers be suffering the same fate?
The arguments for the existence of the corporation as well as the capitalist approach to economics run deeper than whatever the current societal and legal definitions/expectations are. John Smith and others argued using socialist reasoning as justification; which shouldn't be a surprise since few people are anti-social.
Today it's a completely unspoken contract, let the capitalists and corporations exist for the greater benefit of all. (anything for the greater good of all is socialism.) THAT is the reason they are justified in doing everything they've done and it's implied when they say you are anti-capitalist or anti-corporatist that you are a fool who can't see the benefits they provide society; most often labeling the fool as a communist of some sort.
It's incredibly dumb and almost beyond recognition what thinking is really behind it (but not so much by the people parroting the buzz phrases.) It is hard to have a discussion at all when the language has been 1984'ed (FYI, biggest theme of the book was language - Why do you think Orwell added an addendum to the story on NewSpeak?)
Public companies exist as government defined/enforced legal entities; indirectly, they are government and can therefore be made to do whatever the people wish them to. Germany for example, forces corporations to include worker representation on the board. You could allow workers to vote on firing a CEO; or REQUIRE they hire X people per $X profit... ultimately ending up with something like "The Jetson's" where robots do everything and workers are just there to play office politics so they can have a "job".
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
This is an interesting post. And you are correct in that by living frugally you would not need to work quite as much.
However, there is a major factor you are neglecting : certain costs are very large regardless of how much you save elsewhere. The three main ones are :
a. Education. There are bargain price educational programs, I admit. Train to do a trade skill like nurse or electrician, and it's a short and inexpensive period in school, followed by a longer period of training at decent pay. But if you do want a real degree, it's going to cost a fortune unless you are very lucky or live in a state with heavily subsidized schools.
b. Health Care. You can only avoid major expenses here by being lucky or choosing to die when you get sick. Prevention helps some but you can still easily have bad luck.
c. Housing. Want to live somewhere where high paying jobs are? You can't buy a small house like you describe for a reasonable price, they aren't on the market.
The funny thing about it being impossible is that lots of people are doing it. You can certainly decide not to do it yourself. That's fine. It's very clearly not impossible.
On education, by the time I was halfway through school, the program had already helped me double my income, so I graduated with more money in the bank than when I started school. Many people don't do that. Many people get a degree in African History from the most expensive school they can get into. You don't have to do that. You don't have to do what most people do.
For example, WGU was started by governors of 19 states.
Tuition is $4,500 after the $1,500 tax credit. It's a state school in some states, just like University of Texas or Florida State, and all online. The final exams for many WGU classes are industry certification exams such as Cisco CCNA. That means that two years into school, I already had a couple of respected industry certs - and the knowledge behind those certs. That's part of the reason I graduated with more money than I started school wth. Two years after completing WGU, I make enough to easily afford my 3,500 SQ foot house. (As I mentioned, I will downsize in order to increase retirement savings).
You mentioned medical. My doctor referred me for an MRI. I called the place asking how much it would cost, since I have a high deductible plan (which saves money) and an HSA (which saves a lot of money). The MRI place my doc referred me to couldn't figure out how much the bill would be for about 10 minutes. Finally, they told me it would be about $2,000. I typed "Dallas MRI" into Google and called the first MRI place listed in the Google search results. They told me $850. Or $650 on the weekends and after 5:30. If I file the claim with my insurance instead of them filing it and waiting to get paid, $450. So the medical cost went from $2,000 to $450 with a phone call, and 10 minutes spent submitting the claim online. Most people don't call and ask about the price, but you can. The next year my needed an MRI and of course we used the same place. So that's $3,000 savings in MRI alone, by making a phone call to get the price.
> c. Housing. Want to live somewhere where high paying jobs are?
Dallas has perhaps the best jobs market in the country, certainly it's in the top five cities for jobs. Did I mention I have a 3,500 sq foot house in Dallas? So ... yeah :) On paper, I've made $60,000 on that purchase over the last 2 1/2 years.
I did a couple of things when buying my house that most people don't do. Typically the buyer's agent gets 3% of the sale price for driving the buyer around to see different houses and such. I drove myself, and got half of that 3% in my pocket. There are agents that do that - they don't take you shopping and such, they do split their commission with you. I shopped my mortgage thoroughly, and worked with the mortgage company to get the exact mix of down payment, interest rate, etc and that matched my needs. I negotiated for the sellers tompay more of the closing costs, and did some other things to make it more affordable.
Probably the biggest thing I did for the house (other than saving up a down payment!) was I bought a house that the previous owner hadn't gotten around to doing little DIY maintenance tasks like replacing the washer in a dripping sink. The front doorknob, a $30 item, was old, no longer shiny, and gave a bad first impression. I spent $140 for someone to clean it - and probably saved $5,000 compared to buying a house that was already very clean. The bushes out front hadn't been trimmed for a couple years, so again bad first impression when you drive up. It took me 30 minutes to trim the bushes and make them look nice.
Overall, I spent about $60,000-$80,000 less than the value of the house based on square footage and neighborhood. This because the sink was dripping, there were still old fashioned Christmas lights strung around the sunroom in June, etc. I'm about half way done getting it ready to sell for $70K more than I paid for it and I have about 50 hours and $4,500 into it.
I mean its identifies automation as the source of people fiding their job tedious, repetitive and laking in personnal growth
But thats completely untrue... I mean what were they doing before... they had a menial job that was repetitive and didn't encourage personnal growth.
They didn't loose anything in this... they didn't gain anything that I agree but I dont think they lost anything.
Its the LACK of automation thats producing this problem.. as long as their are menial jobs and repetitive task done by a human, the problem will still be there.
We need MORE automation to FREE people from those jobs....
If you dont put robots in place of humans you will continue to have work that is not rewarding...
Unless you WANT to be a chashier in a grocery until their is work as a cashier then someone will take that job.
If there are no job as cashier then no one will be cashier...
GM has sucked since they started letting the accountants run the company instead of people who were passionate about producing good cars. GM quality went out the door in the early 70's, a decision by the company to try to force car buyers to 'upgrade' to a new car more often than what was common back then, every 5 - 7 years, they wanted buyers to replace their cars instead every 2 - 3 years, so they made an active decision to built crap. Technology was never the issue, neither was the cost to build the car (Labor) or the cost of government regulations. You can see that in that other car manufacturers didn't lose business like GM did, even though all car manufacturers that sell in the US were profitable. The problem was always GM Managers, Directors and Executives.
"Governments have been dominated by the corporate entities and citizens have ceased to matter in public policy" true in
Saturn's customers loved the Saturns, but there weren't that many customers. They always fell far short of sales goals.
Saturn didn't compete with Toyota or Honda. Saturn's customers were GM customers, so instead of buying GM cars, they were buying Saturns. Saturn did not siphon away the Japanese market, which they needed to do to succeed. Due to the lack of sales targets (they came out right around the 1989 stock market crash and the 1990s recession), Saturn ended up siphoning money from the rest of GM. In as much as they were supposed to compete with the Japanese automakers, Saturn's costs were much higher, and the number of Japanese and Korean cars in the US skyrocketed.
So what do you do, since GM was going bankrupt? You sell off the underperforming assets or shut them down. GM did this for Pontiac, Saab, Hummer, Oldsmobile, and Saturn. They sold the Saturn brand to Penske, who didn't build the cars themselves, but contracted with other automakers to create cars sold under the Saturn name. No one would buy that contract, so Penske backed out of the deal, and Saturn was done.
Saturn was an attempt to start over, with a tiny "independent" American company making low-margin small cars, an enormous new infrastructure, and a policy of never laying off workers. It should have surprised few that they could not compete.