General Motors is working hard on streamlining its business in a number of different areas. Just a few examples would include a reduction in the number of parts used in production, as well as a consolidation of the vehicle platforms used through the adoption of the latest Vehicle Set Strategy, or VSS. GM’s streamlining efforts also include consolidation of the GM product development groups, as outlined by GM President, Mark Reuss.
Reuss highlighted the effort at the recent GM Capital Markets Day event. “We consolidated teams,” he said. “Consolidated propulsion and vehicle engineers, the hardware and software engineers, and created a true one-team mentality.”
Reuss also elaborated on how the new structure streamlines the process.
“If you think back about this, our company has always had propulsion in a separate location from vehicle engineering and software engineering in another location. So we knocked down the barriers between the groups. This eliminated issues we had before, when we were competing internally for talent in the software area,” Reuss said.
Indeed, as Reuss points out, complexity reduction was a major goal for GM in 2019, and continues into 2020 as well. One example of this the 12-percent reduction in parts usage for production, with a further 25-percent part reduction expected for 2020.
“All this helps us work smarter, faster, simpler.”
Speaking more broadly, GM sold Opel/Vauxhall to PSA Goupe back in 2017, thereby eliminating almost all vehicle development talent the company had in Europe. What’s more, GM product development in Australia will soon follow suit in Australia with the retirement of Holden.
Now more than ever, GM product development activities are consolidated in Michigan, with vehicle engineering, design, and planning in Warren, and vehicle proving in Milford.
These moves are critical as GM steps into the all-electric vehicle segment, as outlined in the recent GM EV Day event, where media got an advanced look at a variety of new all-electric GM products. These include new EV platforms like BEV3 and BT1, which will underpin new vehicles like the Cadillac Lyriq and GMC Hummer EV electric pickup.
Stay tuned, as we’ll have a follow-up article that takes a look at the average time GM product development employees have worked at GM. Until then, make sure to subscribe to GM Authority for ongoing GM news coverage.
Comments
This cuts two ways: if you overdo commonization, you find that you cannot fix anything without changing everything. Remember that the recalled ignition switch sets recalled a few years ago were a “common” part used across many vehicles. There is no substitute for experienced development teams led by sincerely wise senior engineers
GM was ahead of EVERYONE with the EV1 and again with the High Wire concept and they not only dropped the ball, the gave it to the lesser automotive manufacturers. These are only a couple examples of them turning over the ball to the other teams.
Mary WAKE UP and unleash the massive talent GM has on it’s payroll. Make Cadillac the Standard of The World again. The C8 is a great start now take your foot off the necks of the amazingly talented people you have at your disposal.
“We fired all the good FWD platform experts at Opel.”
“We fired all the good RWD platform experts at Holden.”
Hurray consolidation!