- In a bid to end what it calls the "roller-coaster ride" in product development, General Motors on Tuesday said it will slash the number of vehicle and engine platforms it uses globally by half.
- The number of vehicle architectures will drop from 30 in 2010 to 14 in 2018.
- The number of engine platforms will drop from nearly 20 in 2009 to fewer than 12 in 2018, with a long-term goal of just 10 platforms.
DETROIT — In a bid to end what it calls the "roller-coaster ride" in product development and to cut costs, General Motors on Tuesday said it will slash the number of vehicle and engine platforms it uses globally by half.
"More of our components will be common and more of our vehicles will be on global architectures," said GM CEO Dan Akerson in the automaker's 2011 Global Business Conference.
The number of vehicle architectures will drop from 30 in 2010 to 14 in 2018.
The number of engine platforms will drop from nearly 20 in 2009 to fewer than 12 in 2018, with a long-term goal of just 10 platforms.
GM executives said that its inefficient product-development practices cost the automaker up to $1 billion annually.
"We've been on this roller-coaster ride in product portfolio investment," said Mary Barra, GM's senior vice president of global product development. "We've lost about a billion dollars a year when it comes to 'churn.' It's a horrible way to run the global product development business."
Barra said that "churn," or the starting and stopping of product programs, "hurts the momentum of the team."
She bemoaned the fact that the Chevrolet Traverse, Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia could have "been into the market a year and a half earlier," but that the stopping and starting of the program due to financial conditions hampered the launches.
Akerson noted that "there was a lot of waste on projects that were on-again and off-again." But he said that "the future for General Motors is quite positive."
"The old GM was all about how do we get to next year," noted Dan Ammann, GM chief financial officer. "(It) could pull back on a product program to save some cash. We (now) have the ability to look out to the horizon."
GM executives said that common architectures will allow it to get vehicles to market faster.
GM also said it will start building Cadillacs "in volume" in China by the third quarter of 2012 and that it is in the process of building four more plants in China and another plant in Russia. The automaker said it plans to introduce 16 new models or upgrades in China in the next five years.
GM said it has taken 1.5 million units of capacity out of plants in North America, and reduced $11 billion in labor costs in the U.S. through plant closures, workforce cuts and re-negotiating contracts with the United Auto Workers.
Inside Line says: GM lays out its new product-development philosophy — but will the streamlined approach really work?
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ambee514 says:
08:38 PM, 08/10/2011
GM can we please get some more cars available in the US with a stick shift? I don't think that even half of the current line up has it available.
kevm14 says:
05:28 PM, 08/10/2011
That's a shame about the 3500 "high value" V6. An Impala and 4 cylinder Malibu 6-speed appear to get similar real world mileage according to my own results with rental cars. And the Impala has, what, another 40hp, way more torque, and the old 4-speed auto. They should have used the 3.5 in the Malibu, as they did in the previous gen. Sadly, the reason they didn't was because the media would have been all over that: "pushrod V6???" They'd rather be able to market "4 cylinder for economy" than a V6 that performs better with the same mileage. Very frustrating to watch.
michael_s says:
06:44 AM, 08/10/2011
GM killed the 90 degree 3.8 pushrod V6 engine family a year or two back. It's in the process of killing the 3.4/3.5/3.9 liter pushrod V6 engine family that's ending its life in the 2011 Impala. Its dual overhead camshaft V8 "Northstar" engines die this year with the end of the DTS and Lucerne. The 4.3 liter pushrod V6 found in trucks, based on an older generation of GM's smallblock V8 technology, will almost certainly be retired for the next generation pickups.
I suspect in a few years the US market will have (1) the tiny four cylinder engines in the Spark, (2) the 1.4 and 1.8 liter four cylinder engine family in the Sonic and Cruze, (3) a diesel engine for the Cruze, (4) the 2.4 and 2.5 liter four cylinder engine family in the Malibu, Regal, LaCrosse, Equinox, and so forth, (5) the 3.0 and 3.6 liter V6 dual overhead camshaft engine family in a host of applications, (6) the next generation small-block pushrod V8s, and (7) the lone Duramax diesel engine. That's seven engine families in the US, maybe more if you categorize supercharged, turbocharged, or hybrid engines separately.
How many different engine families do they plan to have overseas if the total is going to be near 20?
angry_mushroom says:
08:09 PM, 08/09/2011
Is it me, or is Ford waaaaaaaaaaaay ahead in this regard? Granted I wish that Ford had more than one rear-wheel drive platform right now in the U.S...
tlong says:
07:56 PM, 08/09/2011
It took them 30 years to figure this out?
bfo says:
06:29 PM, 08/09/2011
I only hope they include the Holden commodore platform in manual form. They need a really good sport sedan like the Pontiac GXP. I am looking forward to getting one in the future for myself soon. I can only hope. I can not stand the fact that i miss the last one and may have to stick to looking for a used one. I can only hope!
isend2c says:
02:31 PM, 08/09/2011
I hope that no more than two are diesels...