More Models, Fewer Platforms

[roteague]

"More Models, Fewer Platforms
By Jerry Flint
WardsAuto.com, Mar 31, 2006 10:36 AM

The secret to success in auto manufacturing today is flexibility: building more than one platform on the same assembly line.

That sounds reasonable, but it is terribly expensive to revamp a plant with flexible tooling if flexibility isn’t already baked into your process, like it is at Toyota and Honda. There is a cheaper alternative.

Everyone wants to cut manufacturing costs. In Detroit, too often that means squeezing suppliers. But the most important costs in building a car are the tooling and the factory itself. The more cars you build in a factory, the lower the fixed cost per unit. That's why flexibility has become so important. Production runs are getting smaller all the time. I remember when Chevy and Ford would make 1 million units of one model. Today the best-selling car is Toyota's Camry, with 432,000 U.S. sales last year. "

http://wardsauto.com/commentary/more_models_platforms/

[Bravada]

The day Jerry Flint will stop getting extatic about platform sharing, which has been going on for decades now, the world will end and we will all fall into a big black hole....

As concerns his examples, the Ford is a lame one (two vehicles are outright rebadges and the Zephyr isn't much different), the Chrysler one is a bit better and only the Cadillac is a bit substantial (three notably different bodies). How about Nissan, who manages to conjure an almost entire lineup out of one platform, and this includes vehicles as different as a sporty midsize sedan and a minivan? Or, when mentioning CD3, why doesn't he mention CX-7, Edge, MPV etc.?

[2648562]

There's a whole lot more flexibility going on than those lame examples.

[303montecarlo]

Originally Posted by roteague

"More Models, Fewer Platforms
By Jerry Flint
WardsAuto.com, Mar 31, 2006 10:36 AM

The secret to success in auto manufacturing today is flexibility: building more than one platform on the same assembly line.

That sounds reasonable, but it is terribly expensive to revamp a plant with flexible tooling if flexibility isn’t already baked into your process, like it is at Toyota and Honda. There is a cheaper alternative.

Everyone wants to cut manufacturing costs. In Detroit, too often that means squeezing suppliers. But the most important costs in building a car are the tooling and the factory itself. The more cars you build in a factory, the lower the fixed cost per unit. That's why flexibility has become so important. Production runs are getting smaller all the time. I remember when Chevy and Ford would make 1 million units of one model. Today the best-selling car is Toyota's Camry, with 432,000 U.S. sales last year. "

http://wardsauto.com/commentary/more_models_platforms/

I can tell you this GM in the 90's put the Manufacturing part out the window for some place like Delphi. The Predecessors were Peregrine and ACSYS both flopped like fish out of water.There is no surprises in what has happened with Delphi.The biggest cost to GM is Saturn and its cost overruns for all the new products and car lines,The dealerships ,Plants are all ripe for a sell of.This would give the money GM needs to get manufacturing back in house and the costs controlable (this is the big picture)

[asim]

This is good, more models on less platforms!

[ChevroletRevived]

Good technique, as it reduces costs by having fewer platforms/engines. It reduced complexity, plants needed, ect. Much more efficient modus operandi.

[DuSpinnst]

Hasn't GM been consolidating platforms? Taking out the niche Kappa and Y-Body, N-Body from Nummi, and the Aveo platform, they have what 11 platforms? (U-Body, W-Body, G/K-Body, Delta, Epsilon, Lambda, Theta, Sigma, GMT900, GMT360, GMT355) The only redundancies I see are W-Body and G/K-Body, GMT 360 and 355, and U-Body and Lambda. GM makes what 55 some models? That's an average of 5 cars on a platform.

[King Riffle]

Wow. There's nothing new/interesting in that article. It just took him that long to say "I think Mercury should get a version of the Freestyle."

[Butz]

Is that all he could say?! He doesn't offer anything new.

[fkh1]

But remember too that as Lutz indicated a month or to ago that true platform utilization would be able to build the same car anywhere..(only with minor safety regs changed) today we cant build certain epsilon products b/c of they did in certain locations..gm platforms as of late are not as versatile as the one Nissan was using...sort of like what Chrysler did in the 80' with the K platform..Gm Needs 1 or 2 flexbile 1 fwd and 1rwd that can spawn tons of models. and thats key..flexible platform

[usa1]

Originally Posted by Butz

Is that all he could say?! He doesn't offer anything new.

Give the guy a break. He has to write SOMETHING every week.

Mark

[toronado10]

People make fun of GM for platform sharing, but every company does it.
At Honda, the Accord, Odyssey, Pilot, Accord coupe,and Ridgeline all loosely share the same platform.

[oachalon]

We dont make fun of platform sharing, we think its a great idea. We make fun of rebadging. Platform sharing is fine just do it correctly. Like Cadillac, the cts and sts are on the same platform but different cars. Another one is malibu and g6, they look differently and perform differently. The one that is probably the most different is xlr and corvette. Rebadging is bad like the Equinox and Torrent. Gm share the platforms but dont do rebadges.

[sigma]

Yes, GM has been rather efficient about sharing platforms these days, and distingushing between the cars. The W-Bodies, Deltas, Thetas (save the Torrent), Y-Bodies, Sigma, Epsilon (even though the G6 is way to large and heavy) are all well shared platforms.

[RWD60]

problem is GM has too many platforms... why do they need Theta and Lambda when everyone else can make crossovers off thier small and large FWD sedan platforms?? why have GMT-355 and 360 as seperate platforms that can't even share an engine??

and then there's the engines... they have more V-6's than some decent sized companies have engines period!! (for instance, Nissan has 6 total engines in their current lineup... while GM has at least 7 V-6 engines with 200-300hp in their current lineup).