Holden To Slash 500 Jobs, As Family II Engine Production Comes To An End

[JoeT]

Holden To Shed 500 Jobs

Chris Zappone
6 June 2008
www.drive.com.au

Holden has confirmed plans to end production of four cylinder engines at its Melbourne operations, which Australia's car manufacturing union said would cost 500 jobs.

The company said it now had a timescale for the ending of production of its Family II four cylinder engine.

"Family II is the older of the two engine types currently built at Holden's engine operations at Fishermans Bend," the company said.

Holden also builds V6 engines in a new $400 million facility opened in 2003.

The company said full details of the Family II announcement would be made at a media conference at its Melbourne headquarters at 3pm.

There was no immediate word on job cuts, although the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union said 500 jobs could go.

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Holden Announces Timeframe For End Of Family II Engine Production

GM Holden
6 June 2008
www.holden.com.au

GM Holden today confirmed a timeframe for ending production of its Family II, four cylinder cast iron engine at Fisherman’s Bend, Melbourne.

GM Holden will continue to build the Family II engine, which has been in continuous production for 27 years, into the final quarter of 2009. The Family II facility, which includes the foundry, will then cease operations. There are 531 people directly employed in Family II production.

Production at the advanced $400 million Global V6 engine facility in Port Melbourne, and at Holden’s vehicle operations in South Australia, will not be impacted by this decision. At the same time, GM Holden also plans to expand its Global V6 engine family by adding a range of fuel-saving and alternative fuel technologies to increase domestic and export sales.

The Family II engine was first produced at Fisherman’s Bend in 1981 and more than four million engines have since been manufactured there. From 2000 onwards, all Family II engines produced by GM Holden have been for export. The engine is currently exported to China, Thailand and Korea.

GM Holden Chairman and Managing Director, Mark Reuss, said today: “Every product has a lifespan and Family II is an older cast iron engine which has been around now for 27 years. It has served GM well but is now coming to the end of a very long and successful life.

“With reducing customer demand, recent years have seen the Family II plant running at less than 50 per cent capacity.

“Our remaining markets for this engine are all overseas and our export customers have advised us that with newer and more technologically advanced four cylinder engines available within GM, they do not require production from GM Holden beyond the end of 2009.

“Whilst that means we still have orders for the engine for the next 18 months, we had always promised to give our employees as much notice as we could once a decision had been made to end Family II production.

“Going forward, we will be focusing our business efforts on developing new domestic and export opportunities around our advanced Global V6 engine plant particularly in the areas of alternative fuels and fuel-saving technologies.”

GM Holden’s Executive Director of Manufacturing, Rod Keane, said: “Our employees have been aware for some time that this product was reaching the end of its technological life. Even so, this is an extremely difficult announcement to make today as people and their families will be affected.

“Our people have been assured we will be doing everything we can for them to minimise the impact and we’ll investigate every redeployment possibility.

“We have exciting plans for our Global V6 plant and one of our aims will be to grow this part of our business to absorb some of those who might be impacted by this decision.”

GM Holden employs more than 6,500 people of which 3,100 are based in Victoria. The majority of those work in Port Melbourne which is home to GM Holden’s engine operations, design and engineering centres and head office.

The first shipments of Family II four cylinder engines, manufactured at Fisherman’s Bend, were sent to the United Kingdom in 1981.

By 1983, markets also included West Germany, South Africa and New Zealand. Exports to South Korea commenced in 1987 and the one millionth export engine milestone was reached in 1988.

By the time the two millionth export engine was produced in 1994, the facility was servicing a customer base that included South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Germany, India, Egypt, South Africa and the UK.

The three millionth Family II engine was shipped out in 1999, by which time Holden engine and component exports had generated more than $3 billion in export revenue.

In 2003, Holden began exporting advanced Global V6 engines built in our new $400 million engine plant at Fisherman’s Bend.

Recently, Holden invested a further $40 million in expanding production capacity at the V6 plant.

The facility currently exports Global V6 engines to GM and external customers in countries as diverse as China, Thailand, Korea, South Africa, Sweden, Austria, Italy and Germany.

In 2007, Holden’s Engine Operations at Fisherman’s Bend built over 136,000 Family II engines, all for export, and over 132,000 V6 engines of which 38% were for export.

A History of the Holden Family II Engines

Holden Family II engined Holden Camira

[RedVee8]

You'd've thunk they may have lined up a " newer and more technologically advanced four cylinder engine " to take over from the Family II by now.
They've only been building them since the early '80s.

[BBDOS CV8]

They are - it's just GMDAT is building an all-alloy VVT 4 and Opel builds their own in Europe. You could see this coming. Unfortunately unless V6 volume picks up this was always going to happen with all these free-trade agreements. I bet Holden loses out on export credits to the countries we have them with, too.

Poor people at Fishermans Bend just can't compete for costs with 2nd world countries, not only for wages but just straight costs like health/safety/social costs like superannuation and taxes and levies on business, environmental compliance plus we're so far from everywhere for transport, at the furthest corner of the place from other countries.

[mikmak]

I wonder if they will come to the table with as generous a redundancy package as MMAL?

[Aych Es Vee]

I hope they turn it into hybrid and/or diesel engine production

[Ming]

I have no complaints with the Holden Family II engine in my Suzuki Forenza Wagon. It could stand more refinement at low speeds and a tad better fuel economy, but it does a good job considering its roots and age. Here's hoping that GM spreads the best of its new 4-cyl. technology around the world without letting some plants lag so far behind, as this one did. If they were building cutting edge (or even reasonably recent) Opel 4-cylinders, they might not have had to shutter the plant.

[Slick_Holden]

Total shame, Really sucks!..

But totally understandable since holden really is being pressured by GM to cut prices across the board, Removing something that is almost as old as the Commodore is tuff.
I hope they offer 40% jobs in the V6 plant and keep some as casuals and get them in too help build the smaller cars they might bring on.