Up to 400 GM layoffs expected

http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/news-21/1087572205164320.xml

FLINT - As many as 400 hourly workers at General Motors Powertrain Flint North complex are facing indefinite layoffs or placement in a Jobs Bank this week, the company said.

The news comes a day after GM announced it would add a second shift - more than 300 workers - at the Flint Truck Assembly Plant on Van Slyke Road for work on a medium-duty commercial truck line there.

The group of factories at Flint North, near the former Buick City site on the city's north side, are being hit with volume and production changes as the result of slower sales of some car models and changes in transmission production plans in Warren and Australia, said Brian Goebel, a GM Powertrain spokesman.

<snip>

The complex's bread and butter is producing the long- running 3.8-liter V-6 engine. But GM's need for the engine is down, in part due to slower sales and fewer applications for the engine in the United States.

As a result, the second shift in the 3800 engine plant is being suspended, GM said. The plant has two production shifts.

...more...

The economy is great and every day more and more jobs are being created by Shrub and his band of thieves.

Snicker.

are in the government sector. Either directly or through contractors.

I even suspect that all of the Airport security dweebs are counted
as "new jobs".

And the statistics are just plain wrong. I've been unemployed for
1.3 years now and I've never filed for unemployment, I'm sure I don't
count in any stat. Likewise, a friend of mine DID file for
unemployment sometime last year. He's exhausted it recently, and
is now living on his savings... and I'm sure that HE is counted
as a "drop in unemployment".

Add 300. Subract 400.

Ain't we got progress!?! :party:

in communist china!

I was just in the Motor City this week where I not only visited Ford's Michigan Proving Grounds and Science Labs, but test drove a Focus fuel cell car, at about $1 million a copy. But the highlight of the trip was when I test drove Wavecrest Labs (www.wavecrestlabs.com) battery-powered smart coupe (imported from Europe). They removed the gasoline engine and replaced it with NiMH batteries and a controller unit. The electric motors are in the wheel hubs.

Talk about a ride! I thought I was putting the car through its paces until my host, the Wavecrest engineer in charge of the computer control system that manages the torque of the motors, got behind the wheel. He's an amateur race car driver and a former Ford engineer. It was a truly white knuckle experience and this car isn't even up to its full potential yet.

I asked him, after my heart rate returned to normal, why he and his colleagues left car companies like Ford, GM and Chrysler to work for a small start-up. He told me that there's a deep mode of depression around Detroit, where sliding market shares and a lack of vision, has forced the termination of many promising programs. Of the eight hybrid electric programs announced by the majors in 2001, six have been canceled.

The Wavecrest engineer told me that he's excited to finally work on such a groundbreaking project, and so are the other people working at the company.

It's clear that with the exception of Ford and its Escape Hybrid program, that the majors have lost the initiative and it will take a miracle for them to regain it. There's lots of talent there, but they are being stifled by a 10 day mentality, as an old Detroit hand explained to me over a 4 hour dinner just a mile from the Pistons/LA game.

He said that the majors are driven by their 10-day sales figures, unlike the Japanese who are driven by JAMA -- a government-controlled industry group that can take a far longer perspective on sales.

Until US carmakers can take a longer view, Toyota will continue to dominate in advanced vehicle technology. That might be a pretty broad generalization, but it seems to explain much about the malaise in Motor City.

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http://www.evworld.com

It is based on Toyota's technology--my bet is that it's being pulled directly from the hybrid RAV4 they're working on.

Toyota is an amazing company. They invented the best production system going--the Toyota Production System. (Last week I mentioned that I was implementing Kanbans, which are a big part of TPS, in my department at work. It's looking good so far; supply-chain out-of-stocks (meaning there's none in the building as opposed to none on the shelf and some in the overhead) on the items we've ordered by Kanban have ended.) They are introducing hybrids across their line. They were the first Japanese company to introduce a full-size pickup; it's very popular. And they've got a computer controlled stability system for forklifts which cuts down on tip-over incidents dramatically.

And the cars are real good.

Where it all began. Fitting news on eve of Fahrenheit 911...