U.S. Automakers Narrowing Productivity Gap

[cwerdna]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060601/autos...vity.html?.v=4

Some interesting tidbits if you've never seen figures like this before:
"The annual study, which compares labor productivity at six companies with North American plants and is published by Troy-based Harbour Consulting, put Nissan Motor Co. in the lead with an average of 28.5 hours per vehicle. Ford was last at 35.8 hours."

"Another big difference is profitability. Nissan, Toyota and Honda each earned more than $1,200 before taxes on every vehicle they sold in North America in 2005. In contrast, Chrysler Group earned $223, while Ford lost $590 and GM lost $2,496 on each vehicle. This reflects differences in health care and pension costs, as well as rebates and low-interest financing used to cut inventories, the report said."

[cwerdna]

More great info and charts too:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic.../606020346/1148
http://www.harbourinc.com/2006PressRelease.asp

[TonyPSchaefer]

Perhaps I'm just playing the role of a pick-and-choose journalist, but here are some quotes:

The Harbour Report North America 2006 found that 7.33 labor hours per vehicle separated the best performing Japanese automaker in North America from the worst performing U.S. automaker, down from 9.08 hours in 2004 and less than half the cavernous 16.56-hour gap that existed in 1998.[/b]

Which sounds good except for:

"The productivity improvement has really come from quality improvement," said Ron Harbour, president of Harbour Consulting, which compiles the report. . . . That is because workers at plants with fewer quality problems spend less time making repairs and checking for defects.[/b]

Which makes me wonder about the quality of the GM vehicles in 1998 versus those of Japanese manufacturers.