>answer: bad management
>
>Interesting article to read is from the "Investor's Business
>Daily" edition Aug. 3 2006.
www.investors.com
>
>Read article on page A14. title "Motor City Wreckage"
>Car Industry: Domestic market share for Detroit's Big Three
>automakers hit an all-time low in July. This could have
>been avoided, but years ago industry executives traded
>short-term gain for long-term problems.
>
>2005 GM spent roughly $5.5 billion on employee health care,
>nearly half of what the Big Three spent on health care
>overall. That translates into $1500 for each vehicle GM
>makes. Another $700 per car is spent on pensions.
>By comparison, Toyota spends less than a tenth of what GM
>spends on health care and a mere $100 in pension cost for
>every car.
OK I agree with this premise that healthcare has been a mitigating factor in the thier ablility to properly manager their cost but truthfully the average GM autoworker has far more benefits in comparison to Toyota and a further reaching effect on direct cost of healthcare within the Detroit auto world is the culture of the "I deserve" mentality.
I mean that the workers at many of these Japanese plants are seem somewhat healthier and the companies seem to take more of an interest in cost reduction through programs that promote health care. I have never seen anything like this in any detroit area plant. I have relitives who work for a major Japanese suppier and yes they do their excersizes and have nutrition classes as part of their employment so surprise that they have less doctor office visits than their counterpart hence less cost to the company. I may be wrong but growing up with autoworkers and having my wife work in admitting at one of the hospitals here just makes it look like GM and Ford need to look at the manufacturing end of things first because they will never change the attitude or the culture of their workers. She pointed out that many of the patients were autoworkers who came in for hangovers, problems due to obesity and other preventive things. She always had a hard time with the attitude that some of these parents had by bringing thier kids in to the hospital instead of waiting for an appointment with their doctor so they can be treated for a cold or flu.
But I have to also say that the Governor and Stabenow is now trying to pull about helping GM and Ford with thier healthcare cost through our tax money is a bunch of c**p. Of course D-C is in on this when they pay less in healthcare cost than in Germany and truly have no issues but want to tag along to get something out of it while they are too moving their plants to Canada and Mexico.
Speaking of manufacuting end, I went to a Japanese plant that build componets for all the auto companies and they hardly have anyone working at the plant. Machinist and repairmen, die setters, a few material handlers and just a few QC workers. Most of the work is automated - including the assembly of the parts. What I found strikingly incredible is that they can in one to two hours change an entire line from one part to another without any problems. The other important thing is that the life cycle of every machine in the plant (it was a rather big plant) was only 3 years - where Chrysler had presses from the 1950s in one plant I worked at. I only tell you this because this was in 1997 and was old technology for the Japanese back then and the really sad thing is Ford is just moving to this flexible manufacuturing now. If they can replace workers with machines, maybe GM/Ford need to take a look at that now.
