GM, Ford, Chrysler vs. Toyota, Nissan, Honda production

There certainly is: UAW. :-)

And the extra time is not spent building quality into vehicles either because they are always chasing the mark on this as well. Deming is rolling over in his grave. I believe he would say the poor quality goes hand in hand with poor productivity. He would blame management all the way to the top.

That may well be true, I'd like to know if those figures are adjusted to compensate for the different distributions of vehicle types and high-end vs. low-end that each produces, which may inherently take longer or shorter times to build.

-**** Post for FREE via your newsreader at post.usenet.com ****

-

-Motor 7/03, quoting the Economist magazine on hours neede to build the

-average vehicle:

-

-GM 39.3 labor hours

-Ford 40.8

-Chrysler 44.2

-

-Nissan 29

-Honda 31

-Toyota 31

-

-I don't know if this is worldwide or North America only, but it shows that

-something

-is seriously wrong with Chrysler and the American companies, especially

-since the

-factories use almost the same equipment and Toyota's are actually the least

-automated

-of any major auto maker's. I think Chrysler has actually worsened, after

-being

-more efficient than GM and Ford for some time in the 1990s.

- - -

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This means absolutely nothing. They would all have to be building the exact same vehicle for this to mean anything.

Must be another management gimmick to knock unions so they can get rid of them and pay the workers $0.10/hr like they do in Mexico.

Then explain why NUMMI (Toyota in California), a UAW shop, has about the highest productivity in North America and highest quality. Or why some Japanese car makers that aren't very good, even in Japan, like Suzuki and Mitsubishi. You sound like GM/Ford/Chrysler management and just don't get it.

We've hired people who were laid off or fired and then have had them go back to work as consultants for their ex-employers. After all, who knows more about those companies? Basically they tell their former bosses the same things they did while they were still working for them, only now they're not ignored as much, and it costs those companies 3-4 times as much.

But when comparisions have been made just for cars or small cars, similar discrepancies have been found. For example, in the 1990s Saturn needed a couple more hours of final assembly time than Chevy did for the Cavalier (FYI the new Saturns share the same platform as the new Cavalier), and when Ford replaced its early 1990s Taurus, the new designed needed just as much time to assemble, even after a couple of years of production.

No two companies use the same information gathering procedures or the same assembly procedures, so the data is just so much noise.

The degree of automation at an assembly plant will directly affect the number of hours reported but the capital cost of the equipment is being ignored.

And, it could be expected that a more complex vehicle might have more parts to assemble. Also, many schemes aimed at reducing assembly time end up making a vehicle much more difficult to repair later.

97T No apologist for present management or engineering, but suggest looking at the raw data collection practices before making any judgement.

Yep, Chrysler used to top not only GM and Ford, but also some of the ricers back in the prime of the company (early/mid 90s). But since Mercedes had some of the WORST manufacturing efficiency numbers in the whole industry before the takeover, are you really surprised?

So that we get cheaper, better cars? Woohoo, I'm all for it!

:-)

Just give UAW time...

:-)

But in the case of Mercedes, the result is a quality car. In the case of Chrysler, the result is a car with a lot of problems.

Bob

You've got it backwards. Mercedes were (and are) maintenance hogs. With few exceptions, I've always found Chrysler products extremely trouble-free. Simplicity beats Rube Goldberg engineering every time.

Approximately 8/27/03 09:47, 'nuther Bob uttered for posterity:

Snip from Business Week Online...

" There must be a lot of long faces at the headquarters of the Mercedes Car Group in Stuttgart. On July 8, the world's most esteemed luxury auto maker suffered the humiliation of seeing its ranking in the annual J.D. Power & Associates Inc. survey of car dependability plunge to No. 26 from No. 16 last year, eight slots below the industry average, trailing Chrysler, Ford, and Plymouth. "

Not only did Chrysler beat Mercedes, but a dead brand also did....

Go figure.

looking at

From a UK base, I agree absolutely. As one who has toured many and various factories over many years, I can assure everyone that the productivity figures hide a multitude of sins. Exemplifying this is the difference between a factory which machines and assembles major and minor components compared to a modern assembly factory which only bolts pre-assembled components together. In the latter type of assembly plant, most components are pre assembled offsite into more major components which are delivered ready for snapping into place on the assembly line. The striking point of most major plants I have seen lately is the amount of work put in to assemble doors as a proportion of the whole assembly process. Doors form a very large part of the assembly process in an 'assembly plant'.

Huw

I've noticed that Mercedes-Benz has been engaging in mass production of cars that are priced entirely too low. Something had to give and that's what happened.

The moment they switched from quality to quantity they sealed their fate.

"M.K. Reed" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@post.usenet.com:

Have you ever been in one of the Big 3's plants? I have, for extended periods, and I can tell you exactly why that is. The folks don't want to work. but they want paid (plus overtime) period. end of story. I've personally seen them sleeping, (even have beds made out of milk crates and foam), witnessed them deliberately disable/crash/destroy equipment so they can work the weekend on overtime (and laugh about doing it). The companies install 200% capacity so they can run 60% actual. It is unbelievable unless you have personally witnessed it.

How much more time? They've already had 8 years. We'll probably find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq first.

At least for final assembly, Toyota uses the lowest percentage of automation, under 15%, and for the past 5 years has been on a program to actually reduce this figure. The highest level of automation in Japan may be Nissan, roughly 20%, while around the world the highest is probably with VW or Fiat.

Welded door hinges, nonadjustable wheel alignment, what else (I'm asking; I don't know)? But 6-piece snap-in bumpers don't hurt repair but helps assembly, while some Chrysler dashboards consist of a lot of separate pieces but are just as hard to repair.

The Saturn Ion has nothing to do with the platform for the current Cavalier. The upcoming Cavalier replacement, the Cobalt, will use the same Delta platform that the Ion does.