Automakers seek a gold standard

[RBB]

I assume this is the correct spot to post this - It's not strictly a GM article, but focuses on them more than Ford or DC:

Link to article

Automakers seek a gold standard

By Tom Krisher

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

01/24/2007

DETROIT — You've probably never seen the firewall, that slab of steel between you and the heat of your car's engine, nor do you care about it.

But the way it's designed and welded into vehicles may be the key to financial survival for U.S. automakers, and the key to how much you pay for cars in the future.

Currently, Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group and General Motors Corp. have dozens of firewalls.

But Toyota Motor Corp., the recognized leader in manufacturing efficiency, has only a few, and the only difference in those is the width. All the holes for wires and ducts are in the same place, and a worker at any plant worldwide can install one in almost any of Toyota's models because they fit together the same way.

It's the commonality of thousands of parts from the firewall to the frame, combined with standardized manufacturing techniques across the globe that make Toyota and Honda Motor Co. more efficient.

With losses piling up in Detroit, U.S. automakers are racing to become more efficient. Industry officials say consumers will benefit because car companies will reduce costs dramatically, resulting in stable prices, increased quality, more features and new models coming out at a faster pace.

"This is it for so much of everything else," said Laurie Harbour-Felax, president of the Harbour-Felax Group of Royal Oak, Mich., a consulting company that has studied competitive differences between U.S. and Asian automakers. "It enables everything else in terms of competitiveness."

The lack of common parts is one reason why Ford, GM and Chrysler made an average of $2,400 less per vehicle in 2005 than their Japanese competitors, according to a study by the Harbour-Felax Group released late last year.

Of the Big Three, GM is further ahead in the race to base more of its models on "common architecture," Harbour-Felax said.

Ford is the furthest behind, according to Harbour-Felax, but the company says it, too, is working to globalize its car parts and manufacturing.

GM now builds a small sport utility vehicle — the Saturn Vue and Chevrolet Equinox in North America — with standardized parts in factories across the globe, and later this year will unveil a globally designed and manufactured mid-sized car.

Company leaders saw the need for globalization in the 1990s and began moving in that direction, but a corporate bureaucracy that rewarded managers based on regional performance stood in the way, GM officials said. GM, which lost more than $10.6 billion in 2005 and more than $3 billion in the first nine months of last year, was forced to change by need, said Jim Queen, vice president of global engineering.

"We saw the train wreck coming in North America many years ago," Queen said.

Globalization picked up momentum in 2001, when GM hired industry icon Bob Lutz and gave him the mission of consolidating numerous engineering and design shops worldwide.

Many European engines wouldn't fit in U.S. models, and parts ended up being completely different on the same cars, even though the underpinnings were nearly identical, Lutz said in a recent interview with the Associated Press.

The issue came to a head when Lutz wanted the recently acquired GM Daewoo unit in South Korea to build a new small SUV based on the existing Vue/Equinox architecture, but the Asia Pacific group wanted to build a completely new vehicle.

Finally, Chief Executive Rick Wagoner stepped in and said the vehicle would be built globally, paving the way for a 2005 organizational structure change that took design and engineering away from regional managers and made them global, Lutz said.

Save for vehicles like pickups, which are unique to North America, GM plans to manufacture all of its vehicles globally by 2012.

The company's manufacturing will be analogous to Lego blocks, Lutz said, which always snap together the same way no matter what you're building. That will allow GM to build multiple models at plants worldwide, so if it gets stung by currency fluctuations in one country, it can ramp up and produce cars where the exchange rate is more favorable.

At Ford, the company has had success building models globally, with several coming off Mazda and Volvo architecture. But it is still behind in standardizing parts and manufacturing, Harbour-Felax said.

Chrysler, too, says it has been making parts more common and manufacturing more efficient.

For example, three small SUVs, the Dodge Caliber and the Jeep Compass and Patriot, are built at a plant in Belvidere, Ill. The vehicles, different but built on the same underpinnings, are built in the same sequence with thousands of similar parts, reducing production costs, said Frank Ewasyshyn, executive vice president of manufacturing.

There's a downside to having too much uniformity, he said, because tight manufacturing and commonality rules can limit design creativity, he said.

"Our rules tend to be a little looser than others to be more creative," Ewasyshyn said.

Toyota, which refused to comment for this story, is still the target of the other automakers, and it's still honing its manufacturing processes, Harbour-Felax said.

"This isn't a race that has a finish line," said Ewasyshyn. "As long as there are people making things, this race isn't going away."

-RBB

[Sixty8panther]

Yeah... I guess you save a lot of money when you only make the

same exact appliance in varying sizes. regrigerator parts are

are pretty universal too from what I understand.

Back in May of 2006 after the fire department had finally put out

the inferno inside the engine bay of the 1970 Cadillac CDV that I

had light on fire in my driveway one of the more experienced

fireman remarked how modern "firewalls" suck because they're

nothing but a piece of sheetmetal. The Cadillac's interior was

unscathed by the fire except for the water in the rugs.... he siad

if it was a modern car the interior would have been burning and

melting before the fire truck even got there.

[regfootball]

the point of the article is fine, but the question is, is it worth it to pay some lame-o like this to waste time (that could be better utilized solving world hunger, or conversely, cleaning the toilets at my house) writing another entire article about this? Especially since the bent of the article in the end is just to rip on the domestics again and put toyota on a pedesfukkingtal?

Have we not already seen 2,094 articles about this? Why can't we have equal time, 2,094 articles about engine sludge or truck suspensions and chassis failing so you can't stay in your own lanes?

Jesus Christ. If we really need to pay some lackey to write another article like this, which accomplishes nothing at this point, and says nothing new..........dammit.

The gist of the article could be covered in about 3 paragraphs and with one illustration. But you gotta fill copy, I guess.

Why can't we have an article about how McDonalds and Burger King save big dough making burgers on an assembly line and saving big bucks? HUH?

yeah, then they could write about what I experienced about a week ago at McNDons. I am in the rest room, washing my hands. Worker dude comes in, takes a dumpola. and then leaves without washing hands. A few minutes later, i am ordering food for my family, and guess who is on the burger assembly line......REST ROOM DUDE!!!!!!!

Edited January 24, 2007 by regfootball

[ellives]

the point of the article is fine, but the question is, is it worth it to pay some lame-o like this to waste time (that could be better utilized solving world hunger, or conversely, cleaning the toilets at my house) writing another entire article about this? Especially since the bent of the article in the end is just to rip on the domestics again and put toyota on a pedesfukkingtal?

Have we not already seen 2,094 articles about this? Why can't we have equal time, 2,094 articles about engine sludge or truck suspensions and chassis failing so you can't stay in your own lanes?

Jesus Christ. If we really need to pay some lackey to write another article like this, which accomplishes nothing at this point, and says nothing new..........dammit.

The gist of the article could be covered in about 3 paragraphs and with one illustration. But you gotta fill copy, I guess.

Why can't we have an article about how McDonalds and Burger King save big dough making burgers on an assembly line and saving big bucks? HUH?

yeah, then they could write about what I experienced about a week ago at McNDons. I am in the rest room, washing my hands. Worker dude comes in, takes a dumpola. and then leaves without washing hands. A few minutes later, i am ordering food for my family, and guess who is on the burger assembly line......REST ROOM DUDE!!!!!!!

OK - I admit it. You grossed me out.

Actually the whole article was completely worthless. Notice the "industry" information was quoted from "Laurie Harbour-Felax, president of the Harbour-Felax Group" which is clearly a rinky dink outfit that probably is paid by Toyota for their (her?) "consulting." Would kinda explain why Toyota had "no comment."

Dirtbags.

[siegen]

But if Toyota makes a defective firewall design, they will have to recall more of their vehicles..... :AH-HA_wink:

[Robert Hall]

Interesting...I would think automakers (any automaker) would have standardized firewalls across a platform---I would think they would be same on all the GM W-bodies, same on the Epsilons, etc..

[balthazar]

Aren't they exactly that right now?

[Robert Hall]

Aren't they exactly that right now?

That's what I would assume... I assume Toyota has fewer because they have fewer platforms.

[balthazar]

Right (and please excuse The Robot if he is blathering here), but isn't the idea as presented to share firewalls across different platforms?

[regfootball]

toyota has 3 brands and has not been as global as GM. GM has many brands and several operating units worldwide. Until recently, crash needs and vehicle packaging were so different on different parts of the globe, it has never really needed to be standardized before, globally.

This is just another Toyota is God article. And its not. I should have ordered a happy meal for the writer of this piece of crap. This is about as useless at Robert Farago.

[evok]

Actually the whole article was completely worthless. Notice the "industry" information was quoted from "Laurie Harbour-Felax, president of the Harbour-Felax Group" which is clearly a rinky dink outfit that probably is paid by Toyota for their (her?) "consulting." Would kinda explain why Toyota had "no comment."

Dirtbags.

I must say you are rinky dink of a poster - might I suggest you search Harbour. You might learn a thing or two.

[Sixty8panther]

The article is misleading... I'm pretty effin sure the

Yaris and Tundra do NOT share firewalls. They're

saying they only have one firewall and width is the

only variable. C'mon. that's retarded. As if the

Prius & Lexus LS430 have the same mount points

for all the hardware. Just more Toyota Koolaid!

[Sixty8panther]

P.S. Reg: that is absolutely disgusting, I'll have to avoid

Mcdonald's for a while, at least until I forget that factoid.

[evok]

toyota has 3 brands and has not been as global as GM. GM has many brands and several operating units worldwide. Until recently, crash needs and vehicle packaging were so different on different parts of the globe, it has never really needed to be standardized before, globally.

This is just another Toyota is God article. And its not. I should have ordered a happy meal for the writer of this piece of crap. This is about as useless at Robert Farago.

GM might have had a global foot print but GM never was Global. Hell, GM was never run as a singe business unit in NA until recently.

As for your other comments about crash needs, that is incorrect. There still are plenty of difference but decisions are made to design globally where it makes sense to be globally compliant.

How about I say, your posts are as fact laden and accurate as Fargo's.