General Motors, also called “GM” in this piece, is an American corporation that is responsible for overseeing a number of automotive and vehicle brands. In total, GM is responsible for thirteen different brands: these brands are Alpheon, Cadillac, Vauxhall, Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, HSV, Wuling, Baojun, Jie Fang and Ravon (General Motors, 2016). Not all of these brands are available in every country served by General Motors; many of these subsidiaries are available only in particular regions or regional locales. As is traditional in the modern multinational corporation or conglomeration, the company has headquarters in one location, and each of the various subsidiaries exist as branches out from this main, central location (Collier & Evans, 2014).
In GM’s case, this headquarters is in the United States, making GM one of the most important American automotive and vehicle brands. However, this company is also not without a somewhat checkered past: although GM is sometimes considered to be one of the most important of the American car companies, in 2009 the company was declared bankrupt. However, despite the bankruptcy, the “new” GM has risen from the ashes to be a company with a distinctly different structure and style—from a project and operational management perspective—than the “old” General Motors (McKie, 2016). These changes have been absolutely instrumental in the development of the new organizational culture at General Motors; this discussion, then, will look at issues associated with GM in the past, including issues of project management methods as well as inventory tracking methods. Previous problems, including financial and safety issues will also be investigated in some depth in this discussion.
McKie (2016) gives an excellent insight into some of the problems that led directly to the declaration of Chapter 11 bankruptcy that shook General Motors in 2009. In the 1980s, McKie (2016) writes, General Motors partnered with Toyota: the goal of the partnership was for Toyota to learn how to deal appropriately with American workers and unions, and General Motors would acquire technical knowledge that would allow the company to make cars that were high quality and reliable—cars that Americans would enjoy driving and would buy at a rate similar to Toyota’s cars (McKie, 2016). Overall, the program was a success—however, perhaps most importantly, General Motors took thirty years to implement these changes.
Today, the shift has been made: General Motors is a new company with a new set of goals and structures that govern their internal processes. The processes focus on the empowerment of team members, a low tolerance for defects, goal-driven waste elimination, and a heavy emphasis of quality ownership—that is, the people working at General Motors are trained to see quality as something that they, independently, can deliver to the customer. Collier and Evans (2014) note that employees who are engaged in their work tend to do better work: that is, human beings tend to work harder when they feel that their work has purpose, meaning, and value to the organization (Collier & Evans, 2014; McKie, 2016). These changes may seem simple, but they require a re-write of company culture in many cases: prior to the more modern schools of thought regarding the role of the worker, industrial workers were seen as cogs in a machine rather than someone with important skills who is unique and important.
General Motors has also become more focused on the research and development aspect of car and automotive design in recent years—in fact, a project is currently under way to introduce more automated features into the new line of Cadillacs (General Motors, 2016). This is very interesting: prior to the organizational and operational changes that General Motors has made since the 1980s, these kind of large technological shifts would have been impossible. However, with the new understanding of organizational structure and internal research and development increasing, the company has been able to more aggressively approach issues like technology advancement and maintenance of a competitive edge against other larger companies.
However, despite the successes that GM has been having in some cases, there are still significant problems that the company is having in other areas—particularly in safety and in inventory management. Babcock (2016) suggests that inventory management is one of the most significant struggles for GM, particularly for the smaller dealerships—one of the most common customer complaints is that when their car goes in for servicing, the parts needed are not available and must be shipped—meaning that the car is out of service for a few days at least (Babcock, 2016).
In 2015, General Motors tried to alleviate this problem by introducing a new inventory management system for the whole North American sector. This inventory management system is designed to ensure that all the necessary parts are in stock for customers, as customers who have a bad experience with a dealership mechanic tend not to come back to that mechanic—they will go to a third-party mechanic instead. The current system, which is in the process of being overhauled, allows dealerships to overstock parts that are commonly needed, and understock on parts that are rarely needed (Babcock, 2016). This may seem like a good way to deal with inventory, but it often creates problems when a dealership need a part but cannot source the part; Babcock (2016) suggests that dealerships and parts departments can only find a same day solution to a customer’s problem with their vehicle two-thirds of the time, which is a relatively low rate.
GM is also facing a significant problem with image—safety standards for the GM-branded cars has been relatively poor in recent years, and in 2014, the company was fined for failing to recall cars with faulty ignition switches, despite the fact that the problem was known to the company (Babcock, 2016; Mckie, 2016). In addition, there have been complaints about the full-size SUVs made by the company, including the GMC Yukon, Chevy Tahoe, and Chevy Suburban—notably, the roofs on these vehicles has a tendency to vibrate at high speeds, and many owners were complaining that these vibrations were making them sick and dizzy while they were driving (Babcock, 2016; McKie, 2016). These are clear safety violations, and this trend of ignoring safety issues has been causing the company more trouble as it tries to recover from the bankruptcy and associated sullying of its name. The company has a long way to go: GM is indeed one of the oldest American car companies and it employs a large number of people. However, consumer faith in GM brand cars, trucks, and SUVs remains quite low—a potential problem for the future of the company.
References
Babcock, C. (2016). GM Implements New Parts Inventory Management System – InformationWeek. InformationWeek. Retrieved 14 June 2016, from http://www.informationweek.com/gm-implements-new-parts-inventory-management-system/d/d-id/1041645?
Collier, D., & Evans, J. (2014). OM 5. Cengage Learning.
General Motors (2015). About General Motors. Gm.com. Retrieved 14 June 2016, from http://www.gm.com/company/company-overview.html
Mckie, Nate. (2016). Project Management Lessons Learned from General Motors and Toyota | GovernmentCIO Magazine. Governmentciomagazine.com. Retrieved 14 June 2016, from http://www.governmentciomagazine.com/2014/07/project-management-lessons-learned-general-motors-and-toyota
