Paving the way: American Specialty Cars knows modular manufacturing

Automotive Industries,  Oct, 2004  by John Peter

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American Specialty Cars (ASC) may just be the closest thing to a contract manufacturer in North America. Workers at ASC's 142,000-sq.ft. Lansing, Mich., manufacturing facility build 42 sub-assemblies for the Chevrolet SSR including body structure, frame, engine and transmission, wheel and tire assembly, fascia assembly, condenser/radiator/fan module, complete IP including center stack, pedals and brake master cylinder, door trim, center console and the retractable hard-top system. Sub-assemblies are built in sequence and shipped just-in-rime to GM's Lansing Craft Center, just four miles down the road. ASC has total responsibility for a 172-member supply chain shipping parts from all over the world to ASC's facility as well as direct to LCC. Jerry Mosingo, chief operating officer for ASC, sat down with AI to discuss the risks and rewards of manufacturing sub-assemblies for a major OEM.

Q. The experts say that communication is the key. How important is it?

A. Communication is without a doubt the key element. It's knowing not only what's required hour to hour, because we don't deliver a day's worth of products, we deliver 10 or 12 shipments a day as needed to build the vehicles. The electronic communications with the ASNs, what's going to happen, what do we need, color changes and so forth. That's one piece of communication. The other piece is the engineering change control. Sending 42 sub-components to build that final vehicle, you can imagine the continuous engineering changes that are happening--the quality upgrades, the customer add-ons. So the engineering communication is absolutely key.

Q. How do you deal with GM's quality expectations and how important is quality in the mix of things?

A. The advantage to where we are today is that there's not a lingering debate over quality. When you're in our situation, if there's a quality issue or a quality improvement or a quality enhancement that you want to make, it's instant. There's no inventory. We don't carry any inventory between LCC and us, very little. And when you have that kind of inventory control and there needs to be a change made on it because of a defect or an engineering change, you can make that on the fly. It absolutely upgrade the quality because there isn't this long lead of normal stops to get something fixed.

Q. One of the goals of Ford's supply park is to reduce line-side inventory. Toyota is looking to reduce inventory to zero. Is that feasible?

A. Absolutely, we should be at zero. I've had plants that I've managed that have done 200 inventory turns a month but it was still never good enough. Until it comes in one door and out the same door then I haven't done it right yet. And I firmly believe we can get there.

Q. Will these supplier-run facilities need to be state-of-the-art?

A. They're not only going to have to go state-of-the-art, they're going to have to build a flexible system, because you're that close. What happens if I have a change? I can't shut that paint shop down for a week or two weeks. It can't happen. You have to build something that's as flexible as the need of your end item customer that's tight across the aisle.

Q. Experts have said that five years ago the union would never have let Chrysler do what they're doing now. Your workers are UAW, do you see the union changing?

A. Our work force at our facility, they're extremely aware and want to take part in the quality of the product and the improvements in the processes. They want to know the business. They want to understand that a quarter panel costs so much to put on and making a bad one costs so much that they are really turning into very good business people.

Q. So there's a new paradigm then coming up through the younger ranks?

A. I certainly fed that in the Lansing assembly plant. It certainly appears that way.

Q. What kind of warranty involvement do you have with GM and SSR?

A. We look at and monitor every warranty call on that vehicle. We have a warranty manager here that touches, looks at, reads, interprets every verbatim, every warranty. We do that in conjunction with General Motors and we do that because we take responsibility for what we're building. And for General Motors to truly see us as a partner, we need to take that responsibility. And also we want to implement changes immediately, and if we weren't going to take an active part in that then we'd certainly not be the full-service supplier that we are today.

Q. Are you taking full responsibility for warranty?

A. No, we don't take full responsibility for what has been negotiated through the contract with General Motors.

Q. How much of your success rides on the SSR?

A. Our success is the vehicle. And I think that's a key driver for us and General Motors. GM has enacted a partnership with ASC like none other they've ever hack We are dedicated to deliver the product to them that continues to grow in the marketplace, add flair to the GM line, yet help GM and ASC together raise the level of quality one more time. Find another way to do it a little bit better. Give the end item customer one more reason to come back Our success is parallel because we don't want our customer to fail and don't want ASC to fail.