US Yaris to be imported from France ?

[Billiam]

Originally Posted by tooter

I think that the negative opinions expressed about US union auto workers are the result of so many customers' trust having been so flagrantly violated for so many years.

It is very difficult to earn back violated trust, even if increased US auto quality deserves it.:

That's what the average person can't understand because they aren't directly involved in the auto manufacturing business. All most people see is that those "darned American workers" can't do it right. What they can't understand is just how rampant the mismanagement was in the Big 3 during the 70's and '80's....particularly GM. There were layers and layers of redundant management who were completely disconnected from both the product they were producing and the people who built them. Then there were the utterly complacent designers and engineers. They were both reluctant to branch out and embrace new technologies and contemporary designs...relying a few people to come up with some half-baked platforms and drivetrains so they could slap multiple nameplates on them and call it a day. Throw in the fact that parts suppliers were often times given little to work with in terms of specs and bean counters high-fiving one another because of the money they saved at all levels of design and production and you have a recipe for bad things.

Major model changes became a joke at most plants. Underdeveloped vehicles with ill-fitting parts were the norm. Line workers were practically left to fend for themselves when it came to new-model training too....given little training for the models they were expected to produce.

Then along comes Toyota and agrees to a joint venture with GM at the Freemont plant. Until 1983 that plant was the epitome of what I just described. Toyota says "hey, we'll keep your workforce and train them using The Toyota Production System". In no time they were producing Corollas and Novas at quality levels no-par with Japan. The combination of good designs, good engineering, good part suppliers, good management and training under TPS resulted in an outstanding product. This was the same workforce that was churning out crappy Cavaliers and selling drugs in the bathrooms not long before that....but all the pieces around it changed for the better to support that workforce.

GM tried to duplicate TPS on their own in the early '90's with Saturn...practically copying TPS verbatim...at least in terms of production. The employees loved it as they were treated with respect and fairness which is the fundmentals of TPS. Unfortunately some "old GM ghosts" crept out of the closet and sabotaged Saturn in the end...that being poor engineering and parts supplier problems and those pesky bean-counters. There was little wrong with how the actual vehicles were built. But when the support network around the worker fails, the product fails.

The best assembly line in the word can not "build out" quality issues that arise before the vehicle even hits the assembly line. Keep that in mind.