This LSJ reporter would make a poor GM employee
During my 10-minute stint as a General Motors trainee, I learned that I better stick to working with a pen.
I joined 28 new hires at the Lansing Grand River Assembly plant Wednesday morning and worked on a simulated assembly line, attempting to make 18 perfect vehicles in 20 minutes. The new hires were among 450 new employees brought on to work second shift in preparation for the launch of the 2016 Camaro.
We practiced assembling and deconstructing of plywood vehicles. I wasn’t allowed near the Camaros in preproduction for good reason.
I was placed at the quality control station where I had to make sure the nuts and bolts were tight on the headlights, front bumper, steering wheel, tail lights, back bumper and emblem. Then I had to take all those nuts off in roughly one minute per vehicle for 10 minutes straight.
As soon as the line started, I rushed over to my vehicle with my drill and started checking the bolts for tightness. But there was no time for that. I had to remove 15 nuts from the vehicle pronto because the next one was already entering my station.
I skipped the proper work protocol and just started taking them off. However, I forgot to push the car down the line and the car behind it bumped into it. I was told not to allow that to happen.
“You have to pull the Andon cord,” team leader Jason Smith told me.
It was the first car, and I already screwed it up. I tugged on the yellow cord above my head to stop the assembly line to finish.
“Now you’re holding up the line so pull it again,” Smith said while my work neighbors idly waited at their stations.
I got back to work without checking the nuts and bolts, holding the drill the whole time instead of returning it to its holder to avoid scraping the car. I nearly finished before I realized I needed to pull the line again, but I was getting a tad quicker.
I only was able to get two cars done on time of the six or seven I worked on. But I did a sloppy job. I decided not to participate in the next 10-minute drill out of embarrassment.
When it was all over, class instructor Jim Caplis told everyone that of the 15 vehicles made, 14 had defects. Half of those defects were because of me not being able to get the nuts off the emblem and bumpers in time, which translates in to poor quality vehicles.
Smith admitted I was set up for failure. Doing that many things the right way was impossible.
With the way I was handling the drill toward the end, I would have put dents all over the new Camaro, he told me. And I was the one supposed to check for quality! I’d be fired on my first real day.
The whole point was to teach trainees to accept failure and pull the cord for help. If you don’t fix the problem then, they will add up and you’ll slow the assembly line further.
It’s a valuable lesson for people who need to work together to pump out 18 vehicles every 20 minutes.
It’s a tough job. One I’m not cut out for. So I’ll stick to reporting.
Contact Alexander Alusheff at (517) 388-5973 or aalusheff@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexalusheff.