Saturn: A New Kind Of Car Essay, Research Paper

Saturn: A New Kind of Car

Saturn has brought new production and marketing concepts to its business, which helped it achieve the goals and standards set for its cars. During the 70 s GM was experiencing a market decline, this was the main factor in the decision to launch an entirely new line of cars. It would all be started from scratch, no influence from the existing organization structure.

The Case deals with our class through all the management decisions and changes within the Saturn Corporation. GM brought together 99 workers from its 55 plants; some were GM managers and staff personnel. They set up all new work rules, which were more flexible and would enable workers to have various task jobs. This setup was supposed to increase quality, decrease boredom, and increase job satisfaction. Richard LeFauve took over as the new president because of his experience with the German labor system, giving him a management advantage with the new line.

Saturn s first year didn t go as planned, but they believed if they continued the growth and quality of their products, they would be successful. Saturn previously only offered small cars, but recently has added a new midsize car and they plan in 2001 to offer a sport-utility vehicle. They hope this will help increase sales and add a larger variety of people that buy their cars.

Saturn is now trying to increase their market into foreign countries, possibly into Japan. Saturn has had alternating success and failure in the 90 s, but to me it seems that their success overweighs their failure. Saturn wishes to be a 100-year car company, so in order for that to happen they need to be a learning organization.

1. GM has made a new labor agreement giving workers various tasks. New technology and machinery have been added, which reduce employee fatigue and increase quality. There have recently been new lines of cars added, and a new sport-utility vehicle is expected in the future. GM also wishes to open foreign markets and become more global.

2. GM wanted the management to be more involved with the workers. Have the labor have some say in decision making. This was hoped to give better insight to problems and make them easier to solve.

3. GM will have to train all the other workers in its other plants, because they will have more tasks and won t know how to do them. Quality may drop for a while because some workers may not adapt quickly. It will cost GM lots of $ to retrain all of its workers.