The team made him proud: GM Manufacturing boss Gary Cowger tells why the system worked so well in the days after the attack

Automotive Industries, Nov, 2001 by Lindsay Brooke

In the wake of Sept. 11 in southeastern Michigan, just-in-time parts deliveries into and from Ontario, Canada, were mired in horrendous traffic tie-ups at the Ambassador Bridge and tunnel border crossings. Among the many executives observing the supply chain grinding to a halt was Gary Cowger, General Motors' head of worldwide manufacturing, But like many industry leaders, Cowger was stuck himself -- in Europe. Automotive Industries finally caught up with him a few days after the disaster at GM's Hamtramck, Mich., assembly plant, where he explained how his colleagues made him proud.

Q: Your North American plants lost only about 10,000 units of production in the wake of Sept. 11?

A: Yes. The team just did a terrific job logistically and in production. The event started to test the flexibility of the system. We had to change orders at some plants and adjust our mix. When you think of the disruption at the Canadian and Mexican borders, not being able to get airfreight into the country, what these guys did was just incredible.

Q: Does the company's performance prove that it now knows how to manage lean production?

A: Yes. At the beginning of the lean revolution, the logistics systems weren't really capable of just-in-time delivery. Any little disruption hurt you.

But with the minimum amount of inventories we have, and the pipeline that's moving all the time--no buffers-to get through last week, with 15-hour delays at the border, was just outstanding. It was a good test of our Global Manufacturing System. Not all the auto makers came through it with so few losses (see related Trends story, pg. 9).

Q: How'd you do it?

A: We put an entire group together that handles all our inbound and outbound logistics. We've got one central point, one focus. (GM Purchasing czar Harold) Kutner's talked a lot about order-to-delivery; well, we've made lots of improvement in the system to get down from 60-plus days, where we were before, to around 30-plus days to deliver a sold order. So fixing that system, having fewer carriers and more focus inbound and outbound, actually helped this situation.

Q: Did your supply chain also help manage logistics?

A: We went out and "pulled" on 'em, particularly the Tier is. We asked if any of them needed help with their Tier 2s and 3s during last week.

There were conference calls the entire week and through the weekend. We had Purchasing, Logistics and Manufacturing all together. We talked about the Tier 1 suppliers and what they'd "pulled" on, what they'd found.

Particularly considering that a lot of the electronics come from the Far East we had to make sure we got the airplanes to the right location. With any commodity, the farther its distance to travel, the more you're going to have on hand. But that's still 16 hours, versus four on the assembly line.

Q: How did you communicate with your top Manufacturing lieutenants during it all? How did you react, organizationally?

A: Well, I was in Europe and they were in the U.S. We used transatlantic conference calls at the beginning, then those guys (executives Guy Briggs at Assembly, Homi Patel at Power-train and Joe Spielman at Metalfab) organized two conference calls a day with every plant manager.

First, we determined if all our people were safe. Once we realized no one was at risk anywhere, each plant manager and materials director started taking critical looks, running hot sheets. But because our inventory levels are so low already, we immediately knew that when they closed the borders we'd have problems. So we started working a commodity at a time; working with the Federal agencies and our logistics people.

It was really coordinated; I was really proud of those guys.