Saki GT

Just thinking today.... American car companies seem to engineer some good product, but build quality is hit or miss. Japanese car companies in America don't generally have unions or any UAW workers, correct? Workers at USA Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Subaru plants time and time again reject UAW organization, and the workers all seem to be doing fine, build quality is high, etc.

So, is there any merit to saying that UAW members build poorly? If you basically have tenure to do your job, where's the incentive to do it well?

Thoughts?

ECale3

I think unions tend to encourage laziness because they guarantee wages and make it difficult to fire poor staff.

I especially despise the UAW because they are notoriously difficult to negotiate with, have way too much control over the companies that employ them, and are bankrupting the Big 3. Fit and finish on the Big Three cars is excellent, yet build quality varies widely without there being any good reason to do so.

Chris Stack

I can't say that any of the GM vehicles have been particularly poor quality from an assembly stand point. I will say that many of the issues that they've had have been epidemic and more of a design/engineering standpoint. I blame UAW for their part in the high cost of labor, which results in cuts in other areas (materials are lower-quality, etc) but I wouldn't say the assembly quality itself is poor.

Penforhire

If I correctly remember James Womack's book "The Machine That Changed the World," UAW workers did have excessive rework (first pass quality issues) compared to the Japanese manufacturers. BMW might have been even worse but they spent so much effort on rework their outgoing quality was higher.

The end analysis matches your opinion though. You can't inspect-in quality (can't catch 100% of defects). Better input leads to better output and, at least some decades ago, the Japanese were kicking our @ss on that with the assistance of Deming and others.

Even today, when I work with American automotive engineers they prefer dumbed-down versions of Taguchi DOE. Things like Shainin's "Best of Best" and "Worst of Worst" failure analysis. I suppose they need their management to understand their methods and reports but the lowest common denominator makes for kindergarden techniques!

GrandMasterKhan

As far as i am concerned. Any automaker who uses self tapping screws to hold down most of its interior panels = poor build quality.

marthafokker

GM has an on going partnership with Toyota since the late 80s to learn from via the NUMMI plant.

I read a few years back that GM's management did not want to take those learned recommendations into their Detroit production floor.

2007 Zx-10

I read it costs GM $1500 more for each car they build because of all the union overhead

rockville

No... but...

The UAW involvement does not guarantee a lower quality product. However, the reduced flexibility they impose means that if there is a problem it may be much harder for the engineers and manufacturing guys to quickly correct the problem. This could be a bigger issue when we are talking about rolling out a new product. It is understood that mistakes would be made but correcting them quickly before they cost money is a big concern.
I think it would also depend on the prevailing mood at the plant. I suspect some UAW plants are far more cooperative in their attitudes than others. Certainly some shops have good union bosses and management and thus fewer issues.

Pen,
I recall a story like the one you mentioned about BMW. I would argue that you can "inspect" your way to quality. We do it all the time in the medical device world. It's expensive and the costs are passed on to the hospitals and later insurance companies and your health care premiums. This is what happens when we say we want 100%. Of course in a cost trade off world "inspecting" to quality isn't a good idea.

I am leave out of this any mention of added cost and the impact to the product when costs have to be trimmed in various areas to pay higher labor costs.

ECale3

I read somewhere that Toyota has an average profit of like 990 dollars per car sold while Gm has average loss of like 740 dollars per car sold.

Chris Stack

Could be true, but that's likely just a (Net Income)/(Units Sold) calculation. It's probably not based on actually profit on a given unit. For instance, I believe that excluding one time/extraordinary items, GM would have been profitable in quite a few more recent quarters than they were. I also believe Toyota loses $$ on every Prius sold. Also wouldn't be surprised to hear they are losing $$ on every Tundra, given the HUGE capital expenditure they made on a new plant. It's all in how you account for it.