Re: GM to cut 30,000 jobs, close 12 plants

[Tom Jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>]

Yeah, but I don't think much of GM will be of any value to any modern  
manufacturer. The factories are old; workplace structure is almost as  
bad as management; there's a bunch of design-legacy junk to produce a  
trickle of cash; the design shops are part of the problem. GMAC?  
Maybe. GM's already ruined their OEM/OER parts (Delphi) -- sheesh.

Here's what *I* would do:

Assemble a team of trusted friends, with this task: kill off and  
shovel out the rotting flesh, build a new business structure. Their  
compensation: a short-term wad of cash for battle duty plus ONLY GM  
stock -- put your money where your mouth is -- do you trust your own  
work, or not?

Fire all the damned me-too designers, fire all the middle managers,  
fire upper management. Take some high-level union schmucks offer then  
high-level management plus they hand pick a few rank and file to  
manage. Keep 'em busy and sink or swim learn. The alternate choice:  
death in a decade -- already dealt to them.

Work immediately on a 5 year plan and begin a 10 and 20 year plan,  
and fund it. Americans have thrown out their own future, willingly. I  
dare you to name one area in U.S. culture that thinks of "the future"  
as a positive place, not one dominated by "losing the present". The  
right and the left disassembled America's visions of the future, hand  
in hand. We need one/some.

Spend most of managements current salary and benny package on  
stealing Japanese, Korean and Chinese hot-shit designers, hire Los  
Angeles anime kids for design, positioning and advertising, and farm  
*all* production to China -- period. Maybe kit-cars assembled in the  
U.S. Do Japan-in-reverse; 100% farmout/kits, phase in domestic  
production. Arrangements for GM existing designs, sales channels,  
service, etc to the partner Chinese manu.

Tie everyone's (mgt, design, etc) compensation firmly to verifiable  
metrics, practical but goal-seeking (those 5, 10, 20 yr plans...)  
milestones.

Admit it -- GM will never catch up with what they've got.

Americans are always best at synthesis, making wholes from impossible  
parts, making do, innovating with what we've got. Look in the goddamn  
mirror -- we have crumbling, embarrassing industry. Get over it. Move  
on.

Americans like fiddling with their cars. Kids manage to do this just  
fine with [Japanese] cars many of us find far too complex. Imagine  
for your kids: Aftermarket software, swappable power modules, snap-on  
body kits (wagon --> pickup --> van right in your yard in an hour).  
Swappable suspensions, convertible interiors, open-source engine and  
chassis comm. systems and busses, all this could be done, save money,  
make money, aftermarket performance. The V8 between a crude pair of  
steel rails with a metal box on top top we love, is long gone. It's  
no big deal.