Team Concept at GM in Van Nuys Blamed for Output Delays
After six weeks of using a new Japanese manufacturing method at the General Motors’ Van Nuys assembly plant, car production is 15% behind schedule, according to plant manager Ernest Schaefer. “We didn’t anticipate the number of problems we’re having,” he said.
Successful implementation of the Japanese “team concept” is not only important to the Van Nuys plant’s survival. GM also is counting on the method to help reverse its shrinking market share, improve the quality of its cars and reverse the plunge in corporate profits. GM eventually would like to install team concept at most of its assembly plants.
In “team concept,” employees work in groups or teams on entire sections of a car, instead of performing a single repetitive task. When a worker spots a defect, he or she stops the assembly line to correct it. Under the old system, the cars proceeded to the end of the assembly line, then defective cars were repaired in the back of the plant. Now, if there’s a problem early in the manufacturing process, the entire plant comes to a halt.
Based on two recent visits, the line is stopping rather often. On one visit, the assembly line stopped three times within three minutes. During another visit, the line shut down more than five minutes while an assemblyman hammered down an ill-fitting hatchback. Everyone else in one section of the plant stopped and read a magazine or newspaper.
The Van Nuys plant, which produces Pontiac Firebirds and Chevrolet Camaros, is stopping more frequently than executives predicted. “When you have 2,000 people with the ability to stop the line, it’s hard to predict just how many will,” said Schaefer. “Our projection of how fast the acceleration would go was pretty sketchy.”
There are rumors along the assembly line, however, that workers are stopping the line to get back at GM. But plant officials said there are no indications of that happening. “If they do start stopping the line, they’re just closing the lid on the coffin,” said Al Wrigley, a Detroit auto editor with the trade paper Metalworking News.
The Van Nuys workers ratified team concept last year by a narrow margin--53% to 47%--after GM threatened to close the plant.
But, judging by recent United Auto Workers elections, the Van Nuys work force remains divided on the concept. Earlier this month, employees elected Peter Beltran, 47, as the UAW shop chairman in charge of contract negotiations for the plant. Beltran, who has repeatedly said he would like to dismantle at least part of team concept, beat an opponent favoring team concept by only 112 votes out of 3,090 cast.
But, in that same election, Jerry Shrieves, 46, was elected president of UAW local 645. Shrieves, who favors team concept, is in charge of local union meetings and other administrative tasks.
Still unclear is how Shrieves and Beltran will work together. Beltran will say only that Shrieves and he have managed to work together before. Shrieves refused a request for an interview.
Beltran said he will send a letter of intent this week to General Motors informing the company that he plans to renegotiate team concept when the UAW starts its national contract negotiations with GM and Ford in late July.
One thing Beltran objects to is that team concept narrowed 170 job classifications down to two: team leader and team member. Team leaders supervise each group and earn 50 cents an hour more than members. When a member is absent, the team leader fills in.
“Whatever we come up with, we’re not going to wind up with what we had before. And we’re not going to wind up with what we have now,” Beltran said.
With only two job classifications, the theory goes, workers can easily step in for a colleague who is out sick. But, under the team concept, Beltran said, “If they don’t have proper training, we could have health and safety problems.”
Schaefer, on the other hand, said training supervisors are skilled in their jobs.
Another Beltran complaint is that team concept amounts to no more than what he calls EST, after the Erhard Seminars Training, a movement aimed at self-improvement and enhanced motivation.
Communication Emphasized
At least half the team concept training deals with interpersonal communications, not the mechanics of production. For instance, the training manual includes several messages that workers should use to polish their listening skills, including, “I accept you as a person.”
But GM contends that better communications enable employees to build better cars, because the suggestions of workers closest to the production process will now be heard. “They’ve given us our dignity back, along with some respect,” said Richard Van Belleghem, a body shop worker.
Still, at the Van Nuys plant, workers say, older employees and day workers generally are in favor of Beltran, while younger workers or those on the night shift--many of whom are returning from months of being laid off--favor team concept.
“You are on a sore subject when you mention Beltran’s name down here,” said Merle Funk, a body shop assemblyman working the night shift. “Most people on nights have little or no use for him,” added Charles Maragno, another body shop assemblyman on the night shift.
Some of the workers believe GM when it says the plant will close if team concept fails. “If he’s successful in dismantling team, we won’t be here. It’s pure and simple,” said Funk.
Beltran contends that GM would not shut down the Van Nuys plant because it is in the United States’ largest car market and is close to a free-trade-zone operation in Mexico that produces car components.
Between now and September, when the national contract runs out, many workers believe that some sort of a compromise will be reached.
“I don’t envision a strike within the GM system,” said Beltran. “But we need to negotiate a new contract that may or may not involve some of the elements of team concept.”
GM, according to Schaefer, is willing to bend. “We’re not so hard and fast on team concept that we won’t make some changes.”
