GM Powertrain Essay

Joe Hinrichs, a recent Harvard Business school graduate, was employ in February 1996 to run the General Motorss the Fredericksburg Torque Converter take all over (TCC) manufacturing launch. At 29 categorys old, Hinrichs was GMs youngest kit and boodle manager. Hinrichs was acquire a poor performing plant that continually underachieved, losing m iodiney year after year. Improvements were desperately needed to increase the readiness of the manufacturing process and shrink operating be.GM had considered closedting d declare the plant however, when a recent bonding process, using carbon fiber, for the TCC was approved in 1995, GM sort of invested thirty million dollars into the Fredericksburg plant to incorporate the red-hot process. From the beginning, Hinrichs faced a difficult situation. The previous plant manager committed the plant to pushy bud perishary goals. Hinrichs was likewise tasked with preparing the plant to use the naked as a jaybird TCC manufacturing proc ess and attaining QS-9000 certification.If that werent enough, Hinrichs compose had day to day emergencies to handle the latest being the 1500-ton sign breaking down, an important machine in the turnout signal process. Despite his situation, Hinrichs met the challenges judgement on, im pep uping both GM management and plant cater. Workforce Management Hinrichs k brisk that in order to be prospering, he needed to rally the plant ply around him, gaining their trust and respect. Being an outsider at a small-scale town plant and in any case being so young, Hinrichs knew accomplishing this would be a huge challenge.During the first month on the job he started to record that he could be the capable leader this plant needed. Hinrichs had in effect(p) reliable word that a UAW motivate at two Dayton orbital cavity plants would shut down all of GMs automatic transmission production plants, leaving him without customers. The standard procedure was to lay off the plant lapers u ntil the strike was over, instead Hinrichs used the lay off as an opport building blocky to give tongue to his workforce that he would take care of them. As an alternative to set them off, he worked with the staff to get as many people as possible to take vacation during the time or mandatory training.The oddment worked on almost of the alterments he wanted to make. Not lone(prenominal) did this improve his relationship with the plant workers, it also gave him a way to start loan efficiency improvements to the plant. Historically, the Fredericksburg plant saw little gains from efficiency improvements. While not stated in the case, this was most alikely due to the full(prenominal)ly-skilled staffs resisting mis cellany, preferring the comfort of their undocumented processes that they had been using for decades. Hinrichs knew that he wouldnt be successful unless he could ease them into the falsifys and frame the changes in a way the staff would see as beneficial.In addition , Hinrichs had to over father the fact that improvements meant less overtime, a disincentive for the staff. First, Hinrichs used the guise of necessary process changes to produce the new TCCs in order to bring in process improvements without upsetting the workers. By framing the changes as improvements to get the plant prepared for producing the new high tech part, the staff would be more open to changes. Second, Hinrichs eased the workers into change by first meeting with the amalgamation weeks before the changes were implemented in order to get their feedback and buy-in as well as time to come to terms with the changes.Third, Hinrichs spread change throughout the facility, so that no area would experience too much change all at once, loose the staff more time to ad near. Finally, Hinrichs kept the workers very involved in the installation of new cells, encouraging them to examine them and provide him with feedback. This approach got some of the more senior workers to take a clos er look and get excited about the changes, some actually applying to work in the new cells. Hinrichs realized that he had to give the workers new incentives to overcome the disincentive of a lack of overtime.He knew that if he could reconfigure the plant away from meeting place lines and into separate work place, workers would be able to take more ownership of their work, producing bettor quality parts and be self-motivated by being able to circular their individual output, increasing job satisfaction. The new cells turned out to be a hit. Workers were excited about having more control over their output and being part of the new process. Hinrichss active management of change within the factory and focus on worker satisfaction and buy-in resulted in a lot of small victories that he used to win over the workforces trust and respect.In the process, Hinrichs transformed the plant from one that was resistant to change to one that embraced and was excited for change. Process Improveme nts One of the biggest take for improvement was the hookup process. Although several changes were made throughout the years, quality and efficiency still fell below expectations. Hinrichs implemented the newly developed assembly which consists of two separate work stations that allowed operators in the adjacent stations to share the expensive balancer machine.These assembly cells were much more cost-efficient as workers were no longer forced to wait for other somebody or machine in the process. Each cell was built like the other with quick turn set-up which created flexibility in the process piece of music also reducing tooling inventory by almost a half. instantaneously cells could be activated to meet bespeak for different models. Likewise, each cell was designed to handle 1 to 3 operators to accommodate changes in volume. For change magnitude quality, engineers designed machines that would use the discipline documented in the PFMEA to check and avert any faulty units at any stage in the assembly process.This increased yields by ten times that of the original inspection regularity which was performed once at the end of assembly. These changes to the assembly process not only trim back down time, allow for dynamic line balancing and scalability, it also created a sense of worker empowerment. Each worker immediately controlled their own output therefore giving them a better understanding of their region towards the plants production goals. This was an extremely successful improvement that Hinrichs could now work off of.The new bonding machines installed for the new process also fell in line with increasing efficiency and operational costs. These new machines would now only required one worker instead of two. These machines also signaled when a problem occurred saving ample amount of time and osseous material. Employee job satisfaction increased as well with the new machines. flush older senior employees who currently hold desired jobs in the pl ant were applying for the bonder positions. Even if this change was a necessity forced on by the process change, it was overly successful and beyond their expectation.Workforce efficiency was another area that needed to be improved. The installation of the QS 9000 body helped do just that. It helped maintain high standards of quality and reliability as well as continuous improvement and cost decrease. This stringent process was basically wanting(p) from this plant. Documenting your process and continually monitoring it through a quality system gives one the ability to understand and uncover inefficiencies in the manufacturing process. For spokesperson, Hinrichs noticed, in particular, the ignite treat area did not utilize its workers effectively. in that respect were employees that loaded and drop off the ovens while three separate inspectors waited until parts came out of heat treat. There was significant idle time for all of the employees in the process. By instruct the op erators the techniques needed to inspect their own parts, their idle time is significantly reduced while completely freeing three employees to serve higher demand processes within the plant. This change in job responsibilities is a good example of utilizing resources to increase throughput not just activating a resource just to keep it working. 1500-ton Press AnalysisHinrichss current challenge is how to handwriting with the broken 1500 ton press. This press is the only one in the plant. The press is the first step in the process and also the bottleneck. If this machine is down, the substantial system is down. There are three options Hinrichs has considered (Appendix A presents the information in data form needed to make a decision. ) Given the information in Appendix A and carefully analyzing it, we have decided to bm forward with Option 1 while continuing ideas to more effectively implement the new Die into the process if purchased.By choosing option 1, the plant would be able to continue operating without loss of throughput or added unit cost due to outsourcing. To reduce system breakdown, a preventative livelihood procedure would be enacted. Currently, the relationship between Hinrichs and the union is good and furthermore, by repairing the press with existing parts, the plant cannot afford to eliminate a union job if option 2 were selected. Hinrichs also needs to be sensible of his spending for the year as well as delivering a know return on his investments.Neither option 2 or 3 will allow Hinrichs the ability to show any return on investment this fiscal year. Option 2 seemed to be an expensive pass to take just to add some reliability with little reduction in costs. While Option 3 sounds appealing, the new die is still unreliable and could have a significant impact to unit costs if additional outsourcing were needed while bringing it up to speed. Hinrich should continue to work on the new die offline and only incorporate it once the skillful chall enges have been overcome.