BusinessWeek tells us that “cash is getting so tight at General Motors (GM) that management has launched another wave of cost-cutting. The company is even scrutinizing the electricity bills.” Just how much cost cutting is left to be done by these serial-cost-cutters? Yet more new vehicle programs are being delayed, with “sources” saying the Cruze has been put off until 2011 and the next generation Malibu pushed into 2013. BusinessWeek is even using the naughtiest word: bankruptcy: “The delays will save precious cash at a time when analysts say bankruptcy is a real possibility.” How bad is it? “GM is also looking at more miserly ways to save money. The company has told engineers and product development staff at its sprawling technical center north of Detroit to turn the thermostats down to 66 degrees and turn lights off after hours.” Nothing boosts productivity of the development staff like keeping it cold enough to discourage naps. But with critical programs delayed, what exactly is there for these well chilled engineers to do? Somehow survive until 2010, that’s what: “These are tough decisions, but the company has to save cash to stay out of bankruptcy in hopes of making it until 2010. By then, concessions in a new labor contract with the United Auto Workers will kick in, saving several billion dollars annually.” Are they really still hanging onto the old saw about UAW contracts being GM’s biggest problem?
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They want to make some quick cash, they should auction off all the concept cars and old models they have warehoused. 100 years of concept cars at auction ought to get them a few hundred million at least.
Who’s the guy in the photo btw? I’m missing a joke aren’t I.
Who’s the guy in the photo btw?
Ty Pennington, host of the ABC’s popular home improvement show Extreme Makeover.
http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/index?pn=index
“Despite the wild-eyed look, could he do any worse than Rick Wagoner?”
Well, yes, he could be an obnoxious, feel the love, Rick Wagoner.
@BlueBrat:
Ty Pennington, ADHD host of ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
Shouldn’t they have started saving energy and turning out the lights a long ass time ago. Funny how the easiest measures to save money are ignored in the begining, eliminating labor and staff is the first thing that comes to mind, morons.
I called this a month back, I knew they were going to start cutting critial deveopment to save a buck, they are f*cked at this point. They are killing or slowing deveopment of models they need, you know the models people want to buy. How is this going to really net them a savings anyway, are they going to fire all the people developing those products and hope they can draw them back when they need them or this goingot be another genius job bank but for engineering.
Why are we going these guys money they have no idea how to run their business properly, let alone make a profit. I often wonder where our country would be right now without these decades of wasted “investments” in both time and money.
If it’s only now occurring to GM to switch off any lights that aren’t in use… what else are they missing?
My company is currently losing money by the ton as well (but we have more than enough to ride out the economy). I asked my manager why we needed so many lights on in the building. We could get by with half as many on and save a ton of money every year on electricity.
She didn’t have an answer and said it only costs Pennies to run a light (yeah, pennies, times a few hundred lights).
And this is at a time where they are trying to find every way possible to trim money out of the budget.
Yeah, you can kiss the Bu goodbye if its not getting refreshed for 5 years.
Maybe Cerberus’ Chrysler LLC (worth “zero” but with $11 billion supposedly in hand) should waltz into GM HQ and offer to buy GM for $1 billion, leaving $10 billion to pay the heat and electric bills – I mean, develop cars at the smaller Auburn Hills operation, closing down all GM HQ and merging engineering operations at Auburn Hills, closing down the worst of the Chrysler product factories (you know, about 60-70% of them) and badge-engineer GM products for their dealers on an as-needed basis.
Then as I mentioned before (half tongue in cheek), simply offer a few vehicles through each sales channel, no more than a few, in order to keep the lawsuits at bay – with nearly no overlap in all of the marques.
Chevrolet. Low priced small and medium cars & trucks, Corvette as a halo model.
Saturn. Quality small cars. Toss the Vibe in this batch of cars and the upcoming Cruze.
Pontiac. Sporty small cars & Firebird (kill Camaro).
Jeep. Patroit, Wrangler, Grand Cherokee only.
Dodge. Sporty large/medium cars. Only build Challenger until this generation is finished.
Buick. For the white shoes and beltline near-nipples set.
Chrysler. Luxury minivans and the 300. (No point in building cheap minivans, since only people with money at hand will soon be buying cars)
Cadillac. Luxury.
GMC. Pickups.
Hummer. Let it die on the vine.
Saab. Sink or swim in NA.
For your safety, stanchions will be placed at the top and bottom of each escalator.
WHY? They just become stairs when they are not on.
jaydez It’s weird how some people and companies think it’s their God given right to use as much energy as they want, even when they don’t need it. I can’t get where I work to stop wasting so much paper and recycle it to save my life. And we go through A LOT of paper being an architecture office. Same thing with electricity, our computers, printers, plotters run 24/7/365. Money wasted I wish I had in my pocket.
It’s sometimes had to believe that this country wasnt this way 60 years ago during WW2.
Delaying development of the Malibu and Cruze? It’s almost like they want to fail.
Some of the lightbulbs have been taken out of the ceiling. Plants are losing voicemail.
Let me get this straight: They are pushing back to past 2010 so they can reach 2010? And then what? Wasn’t it those programms that were due in 2010 that was supposed to save them at that time? Like the Volt, Cruze, Camaro et al? So, what’s going to save them then? Fumes and vapour?
A couple of weeks ago the hourly people were asked,if they new any ways to cut costs.
As one could imagine,some of the responses were crude ,imature and just plain unworkable.However some had some merit.
Senior management drive company supplied Suburbans Yukons/Tahoe’s with gas.It could be argued that nobody buys em anyway,so why not get some use out of them.So why not a Lucerne or a LaCrosse?They ain’t flying off the shelves either,
but the deprecation/gas costs could make a difference.Mangement just shook thier heads and told me to shut my PC down at the end of the shift.
Hundreds of suggestions had a common theme of slash management, numbers,perks,COMPENSATION!
Cause I,m on my way out the door,I can be braver.
Why not bring management head count/compensation in line with Toyota and Honda?Rumour has it that the transplants are weathering the storm.
Right off the top of my head I rhymed off 5 positions that could be axed,with zero impact on day to day operations.I pointed out that back in 1972 the only white collars on the floor were a handfull of hardworking firstline foremen.We didn’t have any need for buisness managers/coordinaters or senior supervisers,shift managers,and god only knows who else.
Managements response was “mikey,things have changed since 1972”
I answered that with “right in 1972 we owned 57%
of the market.We were also the biggest most powerfull company on the planet.Yes indeed things have changed.Now here in 2008 wer’e reduced to begging for money.
I’m confident that after I walked away the next question from management was,when is that asshole gonn’a retire.
We are doing the same at Delphi. Actually I like the dimness better, good for naps.
Does anyone here remember when GM removed the last “e” in employee in all their internal HR documents to save printing costs. I started with Remy, then part of GM, in the early 90’s, we were still using a lot of paper documents then. I remember reading my offer of employment and chuckling at all the missing e’s. If I remember right, this was part of the employe suggestion program.
Turning off the lights: good idea, mis-spelling words: bad idea.
To GM employes, keep a roll of toilet paper with you, it will become valuable soon, if not already.
GM is losing billions and they’ve waited this long to decide to look at things like utility bills? Sheesh, what morons. I work for a supplier to the heavy trucking industry (and believe me, right now, nobody is buying the big rigs!) and we’ve been analyzing every penny for quite some time now. We’ve made huge gains in cost savings by simply shutting off the lights and AC for those portions of the operations that aren’t in use. Times are tough, but it’s amazing at how much impact some good, old-fashioned common sense can make. Oh, wait a minute…this IS GM we’re talking about…never mind.
Whenever I attend the Chicago Auto Show I think about how much energy is used running the escalators at McCormick Place all day long when nobody’s using them, or the impressive water fountains whose pumps require substantial electricity to shoot water many stories into the air.
For the matter, I don’t know why Otis or one of the other escalator companies hasn’t developed an on-demand escalator that shuts off when nobody is riding or about to ride. The notion of running it continuously is tremendously energy wasteful. They can put a sensor pad into the approach to the escalator so by the time a rider’s foot lands on the first step the escalator is up to speed.
GM should just hire my dad.
“Jeezus! I thought I told you to turn the lights out!”
“Who the hell turned the the heat up?”
“Close that door! We’re not heating all outdoors!”
In Australia I’ve seen heaps of on-demand escalators. There is a large green button at the entrance side that you slap to start it. Then it runs for a couple of minutes.
The only quirk with it is that when they aren’t running, people might walk up/down the wrong side. So they also put one-way gates at the exit end.
With this system you can opt not to start it and use your legs instead.
Maybe I am being collossaly naive, but why would anyone in their right mind work for any of these companies? Why would you voluntarily put yourself in the position these poor folks are in?
Blunozer you must be my long lost brother, we obviously have the same dad.
Are you guys my unknown, illegitimate sons?
You think 66ºF is cold? I find it a very comfortable temperature.
What brave patriot is willing to buy GM just to put it into bankruptcy? Anyone?
Too bad they didn’t switch to compact flourescent bulbs a few years back, not only would they lower overhead costs but their intense light output would shine the harsh reality on the C-level execs to boot.
Mikey,
Good on you for speaking up, and good luck with the next career move!
jkross22
Thank you I was just reading the Black Friday piece.The text and the comments certainly put things in the right perspective.
Its like the guy bellyaching cause he has got any shoes.Then he comes across a guy with no feet.
@mikey, I hear your pain. If management can’t lead by example, it can’t lead at all. I am royally chapped that the MBAs of our country have taken us right into the iceberg, full speed ahead. This is the U.S. Unsinkable they say. Damn.
Is GM typical for US companies? I was talking to a friend who works for a university and they are terribly wasteful. Whole buildings of hallways lights on 24/7/365. We’re told by our IT department to be sure and leave our computers on all the time. The lab and classroom computers on ALL of the time. Hard drives that never spindown. Monitors that go to screensaver only. Printers on all the time.
No wonder they are hurting after the state has cut their budget another couple million bucks.
joeaverage :
Leaving lights on is so far down the list of wasteful things companies do that it shouldn’t even warrant mentioning. There are flights from Boston to Philadelphia weekday mornings (approximately a one-hour flight) that cost $1200 for a roundtrip on US Airways.
These flights are mostly taken by businesspeople that need to be in Philadelphia or New Jersey that day for meetings, and usually expense the cost. Since most people on these flights are not paying for the flight out of their own pocket, US Airways is free to charge many times what the flight should cost. The same flight on Delta is about $600 for a round trip.