Assembly Planbook - July 2008 - (Page GM-22)

Lansing Grand River incorporated a wide variety of advanced manufacturing processes and assembly techniques to speed product ﬂow, improve quality and reduce time to market. that GM manages its people,” proclaimed an article in the January 1991 issue of ASSEMBLY. “Instead of a traditional labor contract, GM and the UAW have developed an ongoing memorandum of agreement that establishes a full partnership between [the two organizations]. This memo is based on the premise that people are the most valuable asset at Saturn and it deﬁnes a framework for consensus decision-making that is truly unique in the U.S. auto industry.” Self-directed work teams, each comprised of six to 15 members, formed the basic building block of the Saturn manufacturing organization. Each team was empowered with the authority to take action on their decisions. They interviewed and hired new team members, developed production systems, and selected production equipment and suppliers. The Spring Hill plant was also ﬂexible. Assemblers built both standard and high-performance engines on the same line, in addition to producing both manual and automatic transmissions. Instead of using traditional dedicated production equipment, 40 percent of the assembly tooling was shared between the manual and automatic transmissions in the assembly process. This ﬂexibility enabled the plant to respond quickly to changing market conditions and customer demand. The most signiﬁcant departure from conventional assembly methods at the new Saturn plant was the skillet conveyor system. “Derived from SKId + paLLET, the skillet is a moving platform that carries both the work and the work team, emulating a stopstation in that it allows the workers to remain stationary while working,” explained the ASSEMBLY article. “The skillet system was discovered at GM’s Russelsheim facility in Germany and its use at Saturn is the ﬁrst application in the U.S.” More than 50 percent of the assembly operations at Spring Hill, including the cockpit subassembly, door subassembly and vehicle ﬁnal assembly, were done on skillets. ASSEMBLY claimed that the skillet system had many advantages over traditional chainon-end conveyor systems. For instance, it was “ergonomically advantageous in that the operators never have to chase their jobs down the line. The skillet moves at about 14 feet per minute, giving the team members anywhere from 4.5 to 6 minutes to perform a group of operations, instead of 30 seconds as would be the case on a traditional assembly line. Each skillet also has a lift so that operators can raise or lower the car to the position most comfortable and convenient for them to work on.” General Motors engineers also made extensive efforts to ensure that the assembly tooling and processes were user friendly and ergonomically sound. For example, electric power tools were used wherever possible to eliminate air exhaust noise and oil mist, and to minimize torque reaction on the operator. Battery-powered tools were also used for some fastening applications to eliminate power cords, tool carriers and balancers. Final assembly was done doors-off to give operators easy access to the interior for installing carpet, seats, internal trim and the cockpit. The Spring Hill plant is still one of GM’s largest facilities, but it never came close to its original goal of expanding to produce 500,000 vehicles annually. It recently underwent an $800 million overhaul. The plant is scheduled to start building the new Chevrolet Traverse crossover in September. Grand River The Lansing Grand River facility, which opened in January 2002, was the ﬁrst all-new factory built by GM in the United States since the Saturn complex TWO FACTORY CONCEPTS THAT FAILED General Motors has continually pushed the envelope in developing new production concepts. However, not all of the company’s assembly ideas have succeeded. In the fall of 1986, GM began producing axles at its Vanguard plant in Saginaw, MI. It was a test facility that used advanced automation ideas. The controversial “factory of the future” was set up to employ only 42 hourly workers on two shifts, and none on its third shift. At the time, the plant was hailed as being among the most technologically advanced in the world. It included 12 assembly cells and more than 50 robots. Material handling systems included automated guided vehicles and an automated storage and retrieval system. During tests in 1987, the plant managed to change over from production of one axle design to another in less than 10 minutes. The following year, the facility started assembling axles and components for actual use in GM production vehicles. The initial goal was to develop a lights-out factory, but the trendsetting plant closed quietly in August 1992. Although that goal was never reached, some techniques developed at Saginaw Vanguard were eventually transferred to other GM plants. GM - 22 | ASSEMBLY/July 2008 | www.assemblymag.com http://www.assemblymag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Assembly Planbook - July 2008

Assembly Planbook - July 2008 Contents Editorial Quality in Assembly Station to Station Assembly Lines Assembly in Action Surviving the Roller Coaster The Human Side of Manufacturing Do Your Fasteners Need a Preapplied Thread-Locker? Manufacturing Innovation A Century of Progress Trendsetting Plants Pulse Tools Get Smart Plastics: Design for X Product Reviews Products Advertisers Index Classified Leading Lean

Assembly Planbook - July 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.