General Motors CEO Mary Barra, flanked by global product chief Mark Reuss and company president Dan Ammann, came forward with the findings of the Anton Valukas report this morning. In its wake, five GM employees were disciplined, and another fifteen were fired from the company. The company has also taken the following steps to increase safety and communication both internally and externally. They are:
1) GM named Jeff Boyer Vice President of Safety for the company, elevating and integrating our safety processes under a single leader. Jeff reports directly to Reuss, while meeting with Barra on a regular basis.
2) The company has added 35 safety investigators that will help identify and address issues in a quicker manner.
3) The newly launched Speak Up for Safety program helps encourage and incentivize employees to report potential safety issues quickly.
4) There’s also the a new Global Product Integrity organization that aims to enhance our overall safety and quality performance of vehicles.
5) GM has restructured the safety decision-making process to raise it to the highest levels of the company, with senior management taking on more responsibility of the issues.
6) The GM Board of Directors also retained independent counsel to advise them with respect to both this situation and governance, along with other risk management issues. It will establish a stand-alone risk committee to assist in overseeing these efforts.
In short, there’s a lot happening within General Motors to make sure that nothing like this happens again. But in your eyes, do you think it’s enough? If not, what do you think the company should be doing? Let us know by participating in our latest poll, and sounding off in the comments below.
Comments
Mary Barra is the best thing that has ever happened to The General since Pontiac! This woman will make GM fascinating again.
Has everyone forgotten that every manufacturer had ignition issues. Seems strange to me that only GM is in the spot light !
It always amazes me when I listen to many of the stupid questions posed by some of the press as evidenced by the journalist who wanted to know if the public could believe GM due to the positive changes GM professed just before Barra became Chairman implying that the public could not believe GM. Obviously some of these “so called” journalists do not understand what it takes to make a course correction in a ship as large as GM. What was he thinking???? That every issue and opportunity had been corrected? I thought Barra’s answer was spot on. All you have to do is look at the quality products they are producing now as opposed to some products in the past. It is apparent that “gar guys (Non generic)” are once again running the company and the new vehicles are outstanding and currently at the top of the list among American auto manufacturers and a top worldwide manufacturer as well.
I’d recommend for some of those reporters who have never worked in a large corporation (it doesn’t have to be GM – all large corporations function the same in terms of making significant changes) to spend a few months seeing everything involved. Obviously things have changed at GM but that is not so say every issue or opportunity has been fixed but that does not negate the fact that GM has made significant improvement. So to those “journalist” who don’t understand the big picture and are only “grandstanding” I say “don’t waste readers’ valuable time”.
GM needs to stop putting junk parts in its cars.
The quality of the metal and plastic are and have been for a while, substandard. I own a 2009 cobalt and had a 2007 cobalt before the steering locked up on me. Once, while driving down a street in a subdivision and the other time while on the highway doing around 60 mph. It was only around 3 to 4 seconds but it almost put me under an 18 wheeler because it locked up in a curve.
Thought because the dealer could not find anything wrong I would just trade it in for another one. Its 40 miles from the dealer to my house. Got the new cobalt (2009) home and the next morning went out to take to Walmart and the check engine light came on.
Took it back and it needed a new gas tank.
Long story short, GM needs to used better quality of material. Working on my Toyota vs Chevy you can just tell a difference. Simply rotating tires the studs for the wheels are noticeably of better quality on the Carolla. I have always been a Chevy guy but GM is making that very hard. Please fix this! !! Use better quality materials in your cars instead of the cheapest you can get away with.
Jeff you can not compare the Cobalt to what GM is doing today. Most of GM cars from 1990’s to 2008 that were designed and built in this era was a mess poor parts and poor part suppliers. GM tried to cut prices and suppliers supplied poor parts.
Lutz came in and started to weed this out in the mid 2000’s but we did not see the results of his efforts till the 08 Malibu came out. With each and every new model we have seen a marked improvement in the parts supplies.
Case in point compare the Cruze to the Cobalt and you will find a major difference. Lutz understood that you spend a little more you can get it back and then some with greater sales. He fought this at GM and with the old culture till he retired.
Today Mary and Mark continue what he started. Mary has put on the front burner to repair the relationship with the suppliers and to continue to design and use better parts. Sure there will be some issues here and there as all companies face this but GM will not have near the issues they used to have.
The Cobalt you had may have been a 2009 but it was a car that was designed and part packages priced out under the old culture.
Today the new models that are post chapter 11 creations are much better. I have 3 GM models all three are Lutz products and the only issue I have had was one Tire pressure sensor that was under warranty and I just lost a hatch strut on my GMC under warranty. Both are parts identical to what is used on most cars as they come from the same MFG.
Now on my 04 GTP it was a different story with more issues and just a massive cheap interior. I liked driving the car but it was just cheap. If I had not gotten it for $10K off sticker it would have not been a good deal.
Talk about wheels I went through two sets and the Chrome GTP Comp G wheels were even made by Ultra wheels a large name in the aftermarket. Note the Chrome wheels on my Terrain are now aluminum with a plastic Chrome facing on them. The change to plastic has been great as they do not damage near as easy as the aluminum. They also do not corrode and peal like my old ones. This is an example of some of the changed Lutz started and are continuing to improve today.
Lets put it this way the wheels are so well done few people that own them know they are plastic clad.
Recalls are not confined to one corporation. What makes the GM recall significant, is the fact that GM tried to cover it up. Same thing happened to Ford catching on fire, decades ago. As all corporations face recalls, I’d be willing to bet that all of the car companies cover up engineering, and quality, mistakes. Only difference this time… is that GM got caught.
Jeff mentioned quality… Years ago, GM made their own parts, under the name of Delco. In order to save money, GM followed the lead of others and out sourced step by step. One of the problems, with this set up, is that the car makers take the bullet for out sourced bad engineering, and bad quality.
Marry Barro is facing the challenges head on. GM is fortunate to have elevated her responsibility at this time in history. As JRT insinuated above… changing a huge world class corporation, is akin to turning, or stopping, an aircraft carrier… ain’t gonna happen right now. Barro is handling the issue the right way…consequences, and honesty.
No matter who runs this huge corporation, quality can be fixed… but no one can engineer common sense into a machine.
The truth is GM did not try to cover it up as a corporation.
What happened here was not a cooperate cover up but the lack of reporting by some on lower levels that either tried to cover for themselves, did not report it out of fear that they would get in trouble or just did not want to deal with it.
The ladder of accountability within GM was dysfunctional as were many systems in GM being dysfunctional.
Now I know some do not like to believe this but It is true that GM on many levels did not communicate well and for the most part either did not listen or give a voice to many on things that not only would have caught this but would have stopped them from building some really bad cars.
Case in point. Do you really believe a company that communicated well would have built the Aztek? This car is a major example of the lack of or the inability to communicate. There were many against this design but they had no voice in the matter. Many were people that should have been the first to be heard. The Fiero program was a major failure due to GM not communication well and forcing Pontiac to make so many compromises that the car was under powered and over weight. Then the Corvette people came in and said we want it gone when they saw a Aluminum space frame and a double overhead cam V6 in the car.
It is not just GM. Lutz in his book points out when at Ford in Europe he had major issues with cam failures. He found if they increase the quality of the cam buy I think $40-50 per car the cam would not fail just out of warranty.
You would believe Ford would have been thrilled with the improvement. Well they were in some parts but the accountants for the parts sales was furious because Lutz killed the sale of replacement cams that people could not get anywhere else. Ford lost millions on the sales of cams but the accountant could not understand they were losing 100’s of millions on lost customers to other brands because of the cam. Here again the lack of communication.
When Lutz came to GM he told the people there he was not always right and if needed they could respectfully tell him he was full of crap. They were shocked when he told them that as they were never permitted to speak this way and if they did they were pigeon holed or worse.
When Bob arrived people like Wayne Cherry the father of the Sixteen Sedan has his hands tied as he had to take orders from marketing people who were not even car people. He feared his legacy was going to be a failure till Lutz arrived and freed him to bring us cars that GM really could do like the later Cadillac’s and other models that have done well from his staff. For a while he was going to be the guy who had the Aztek, 2001 Impala, 04 Malibu and 04 GTP hung around his neck.
He is gone now but we have the 08 Malibu, Nox, Terrain and other models he oversaw to show his real input and thinking.
This is not a topic you can really understand with out knowing how dysfunctional GM was. I have had family that worked in engineering management that were of the old school so I understand the old thinking that does not work today.
Also to even have a slight clue one needs to read the Lutz book Car Guys vs. Bean Counters. I would also recommend On a Clear Day you Can see GM By Delorean. Both books tell of GM’s failings internally and they only touch on what they could speak on.
I also would recommend Glory Days by Jim Wangers. Jim is a blow hard on his own topics but he does show how GM did more damage to them selves than anyone else did. It shows how so often Pontiac was never understood and when someone was there that understood it was held back by GM.
Now the fact is what has happened at GM has happened at all MFG. I could tell you of some real messes at Ford over the years and often it was when a Ford was in charge.
Chrysler has been a rolling mess for years. Today the hope is Fiat can make some sense of it.
One reason GM is hit the hardest is they have always been the largest for years and the most faceless. Ford has had their issues but it was always tied to the Ford Family. Henry did a lot of good things but hell he was a Hitler fan, an anti-Semite. and many other things that would sink many in history but he has always gotten a free pass. HF II was a drunk, He was a nice guy but his life was a mess if you read your history. He was just a kid in the Navy and trusted into one of the largest companies when his grandfather was dying and losing his mind. I don’t know if I could have handled that pressure.
The politics, power struggles and pressures with in these large companies would make Dallas look like a bed time story. Too often these things never get out and we just look at these companies and people as happy fuzzy people who have no worries for anything. Most of these people spend so much time on the job they are into their third marriage and never saw their kids grow up. It is not all private jets and Corvettes million dollar paychecks. Some just get fed up and walk away.
Anyways read these books to get a peek at what or how things do not work. The issues at GM go way back and are nothing new. That is why I know the new culture is working as we are seeing things from GM that we would never have seen or heard of. Today there are more people that are not a part of the problem than are. There is still more work to do and to make sure those who are the problem do not force their will back in.
Believe it or not there were some a couple years ago that wanted to cheapen the Cruze up because it was selling so well. Their thinking was we put too much into it and if it sells this good we can cheapen it up. Lutz fought them off just as Mark is today.
@Scott… Excellent comment Scott.