Download or read book General Motors Life Inside the Factory written by Richard Thomas Gall and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book portrays life inside a General Motors factory in the 1970s. Have you ever wondered why or how the lazy hourly workers came to be that way? This myth is debunked throughout the book. Anyone who has ever worked hourly for General Motors, the big three, or any large manufacturing company will enjoy the experiences provided in this book. They will find themselves reminiscing in the past about their own work experiences. Anyone who has had a close relative that worked in a factory will want to read this book to get a feel of what their loved ones went through while earning a living. The book comes to the stunning conclusion that General Motors top executives wasted a tremendous amount of human resources over the years. They looked down upon the factory workers and treated them as if they were disposable employees. They never attempted to tap into the vast and almost incalculable amount of brainpower available because they simply dismissed their classification hourly worker as useless. They treated them as if they were the source of all of their problems. They never even considered that with four hundred thousand hourly employees they might have had the resources right in front of them to help in solving the vast and complex problems that exist in the every day world of work. In todays competitive manufacturing environment Lean Manufacturing has stepped into the forefront for improvement. One of the two pillars of Lean manufacturing is respect for the worker. If youre an executive leader, manager or a student of lean youll want to read this book to see how not to do it. One theory of management says that if you dont like what you see around you go look in a mirror first because your workforce is a reflection of your thinking and actions.

Download or read book Why GM Matters written by William Holstein and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-09-05 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In November, GM CEO Rick Wagoner appeared before Congress to ask for $25 billion to bail out the struggling Big Three automakers. To critics like Thomas Freidman and Mitt Romney, it was a sign that the American auto industry should be led out to pasture; if the Japanese are better at making cars, they said, then we should let them do it. To defenders, the loss of the country's largest manufacturing sector would be an incomprehensible disaster. Nearly every day, the debate rages on the op-ed pages. Billions of dollars and millions of jobs hang in the balance. In Why GM Matters, William Holstein goes deep inside GM to show what's really happening at the country's most iconic corporation. Where critics say that GM has sat on its hands while the market changed, Holstein demonstrates that GM has already radically retooled its entire operation, from manufacturing and cost structure to design. Where pundits say we'd be better off without GM, he shows how inextricably linked GM and the nation's economy still are: The country's largest private buyer of IT, the world's largest buyer of steel, the holder of pensions for 780,000 Americans, GM accounts for a full 1 percent of our country's GDP. A dollar spent on GM has profoundly different consequences from a dollar spent on Toyota. Following a diverse cast of characters-from Rick Wagoner, the controversial CEO, to design director Bob Boniface, to Linda Flowers, a team leader on the line in Kansas City-Holstein examines the state of GM's health and builds a persuasive argument that GM is essential to our nation's well-being and, with the right economic climate, ready to compete with Toyota as one of the biggest global automakers.

Download or read book General Motors World written by and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book American Foreign Service Journal written by and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Populism in America 2 volumes written by Alexandra Kindell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-02-27 with total page 952 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive two-volume encyclopedia documents how Populism, which grew out of post-Civil War agrarian discontent, was the apex of populist impulses in American culture from colonial times to the present. The Populist Movement was founded in the late 1800s when farmers and other agrarian workers formed cooperative societies to fight exploitation by big banks and corporations. Today, Populism encompasses both right-wing and left-wing movements, organizations, and icons. This valuable encyclopedia examines how ordinary people have voiced their opposition to the prevailing political, economic, and social constructs of the past as well how the elite or leaders at the time have reacted to that opposition. The entries spotlight the people, events, organizations, and ideas that created this first major challenge to the two-party system in the United States. Additionally, attention is paid to important historical actors who are not traditionally considered "Populist" but were instrumental in paving the way for the movement—or vigorously resisted Populism's influence on American culture. This encyclopedia also shows that Populism as a specific movement, and populism as an idea, have served alternately to further equal rights in America—and to limit them.

Download or read book My Years With General Motors written by Alfred P Sloan and published by eNet Press. This book was released on 2015-01-16 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. led the General Motors Corporation to international business success by virtue of his brilliant managerial practices and his insights into the new consumer economy he and General Motors helped to produce. Sloan's business biography, My Years With General Motors, was an instant best seller when it was first published in 1964 and is still considered indispensable reading by modern business giants.

Download or read book Mother Jones Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 1986-11 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mother Jones is an award-winning national magazine widely respected for its groundbreaking investigative reporting and coverage of sustainability and environmental issues.

Download or read book Road to Power written by Laura Colby and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follow a pioneer's journey from factory floor to CEO Road to Power is the story of how Mary Barra drove herself to the pinnacle of a company that steers the nation's wealth. Beginning as a rare female electrical engineer and daughter of a General Motors die maker, Barra spent more than thirty years building her career before becoming the first woman to ever lead a global automaker. With $155 billion in sales and 200,000 employees, GM is widely considered to be a proxy for the U.S. economy, making Barra's position arguably the most important corporate role a woman has ever held. This book describes the personal character, choices, and leadership style that enabled her to break through the glass ceiling. When 52-year-old Mary Barra was named CEO of General Motors in 2013, only people outside of the company were surprised. She had done everything from working on the factory floor to overseeing manufacturing, from improving union relations to paring down bureaucracy, and from running human resources to helping drag the company back from its 2009 bankruptcy. This book details each step of her career, and the lessons she learned along the way. Learn how Mary Barra's willingness to take on diverse assignments helped steer her career trajectory Examine the fine details of Barra's management style and her ability to relate to colleagues Discover the qualities and experiences Barra had that drove her to lead this male-dominated profession Study the valuable lessons Barra learned at each stage in her professional life, and why they stuck with her throughout her journey to the top Barra is most certainly a pioneer for women in business, but she's also a living lesson as to how far the right outlook, skills, and drive can take you in your career. Road to Power explores the talent and the mindset that got her all the way to the top.

Download or read book Automotive Industries written by and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 1672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vols. for 1919- include an Annual statistical issue (title varies).

Download or read book Automotive Industries the Automobile written by and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 1452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Death of Holden written by Royce Kurmelovs and published by Hachette Australia. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Holden is one of the few brands that has an emotional grip on Australia (Qantas being another). The closure of the Holden factory in Adelaide is not just the end of a business - it's the end of an era, of a story, and of a great Australian dream. When Holden signalled that it would close its Adelaide factory, it struck at the very heart of Australian identity. Holden is our car made on our shores. It's the choice of patriotic rev heads and suburban drivers alike. How could a car that was so beloved - and so popular - be so unprofitable to make? The story of the collapse of Holden is about the people who make and drive the cars; it's about sustaining industry in Australia; it's about communities of workers and what happens when the work dries up. And if it's not quite about the death of an icon - because Holdens will remain on Australian roads for a long time to come - then it's about what happens when an icon falls to knees in front of a whole nation. 'Brilliant and powerful' Nick Xenophon

Download or read book Coach makers International Journal written by and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 854 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Dream Maker William C Durant Founder of General Motors written by Bernard A. Weisberger and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2024-06-15 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Billy Durant (1861-1947) put together General Motors, model by model, and twice lost it — to the bankers and the engineers, and to ego. It’s a big, meaty, broadly suggestive story that Bernard Weisberger tells — properly qualified and documented — to rescue Durant from the ‘oblivion which is the price of failure in America.’ Durant’s fate, it appears, was in his stars. His energy and drive came from maternal grandfather Henry Howland Crapo, midwest magna-merchant, first citizen of Flint, and twice Michigan’s governor. The failure — dreaded and repeatedly — was that of his wastrel father. Leaving school young, he quickly ‘unveiled his true, shining gift, which was salesmanship’ — but not of the conventional, glad-handing sort; rather, he conveyed his own faith in the product, opening new vistas for the customer. The problem, to find a worthy product — or to make one — was solved with the appearance of a simple cart, mounted on ingenious springs, that didn’t jounce. Within hours Durant had bought out the cart ‘factory,’ raised the necessary money, and acquired a partner — the first of the exceptionally able associates (Nash, Champion, Kettering, Chrysler, Sloan) whom he fired with his dreams. The crucial jump into auto production — ‘a whole new physical and economic landscape’ — came with the foundering Buick; and it was then that Durant discovered, critically, the ability to raise money in the stock market from the sale of nebulous assets. As Durant goes on by this means to incorporate GM, to add a parts division, to diversify (‘Frigidaire’ was his name and baby too), Weisberger returns intermittently to his dual nature — the empire-builder impatient of routine and detail. But it was also pride that he’d proven himself not his father’s son that brought Durant down — for he lost GM the second time by trying single-handedly, in 1929, to prop up the tottering market for its stocks; and this madness the Morgans and Du Ponts could not excuse. Nothing, however, becomes Durant more than his failure to admit defeat; after the collapse of another auto company, launched under his name, he returned to Flint to set up, foresightedly, a respectable bowling alley. His ‘pathetic dignity and courage’ cap a memorable personal portrait far above the business-biography norm.” — Kirkus “Billy Durant deserved a good biography, and he got one... Weisberger has... collect[ed] every scrap of information that could be found and [put] it together in a complete picture of Durant and his work. It gives the first comprehensive account of his family background and private life... A variety of interesting figures appear, some well-known, others now forgotten — Alfred P. Sloan, Pierre Du Pont, John J. Raskob, Charles W. Nash, Walter Chrysler, Louis Chevrolet, David D. Buick. Each has a biographical sketch. Durant himself is appraised remarkably dispassionately, good points and bad, from his ability to see the great opportunities in the automobile industry to speculative mania that ultimately destroyed him... [Durant] emerges in this book very much like the protagonist in a Greek tragedy. He rose high and fell far because his great talents were offset be equally great flaws... Billy Durant could make dreams. He just could not make them come true.” — The Washington Post “[A] monumental work... Weisberger, ha[s]... painstakingly explored and researched America’s greatest success story.” — The Lantern (Columbus, Ohio)

Download or read book Motor West and California Motor written by and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 954 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fins written by William Knoedelseder and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling author of Bitter Brew chronicles the birth and rise to greatness of the American auto industry through the remarkable life of Harley Earl, an eccentric six-foot-five, stuttering visionary who dropped out of college and went on to invent the profession of automobile styling, thereby revolutionized the way cars were made, marketed, and even imagined. Harleys Earl’s story qualifies as a bona fide American family saga. It began in the Michigan pine forest in the years after the Civil War, traveled across the Great Plains on the wooden wheels of a covered wagon, and eventually settled in a dirt road village named Hollywood, California, where young Harley took the skills he learned working in his father’s carriage shop and applied them to designing sleek, racy-looking automobile bodies for the fast crowd in the burgeoning silent movie business. As the 1920s roared with the sound of mass manufacturing, Harley returned to Michigan, where, at GM’s invitation, he introduced art into the rigid mechanics of auto-making. Over the next thirty years, he functioned as a kind of combination Steve Jobs and Tom Ford of his time, redefining the form and function of the country’s premier product. His impact was profound. When he retired as GM’s VP of Styling in 1958, Detroit reigned as the manufacturing capitol of the world and General Motors ranked as the most successful company in the history of business. Knoedelseder tells the story in ways both large and small, weaving the history of the company with the history of Detroit and the Earl family as Fins examines the effect of the automobile on America’s economy, culture, and national psyche.

Download or read book Midnight in Vehicle City written by Edward McClelland and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2021 Midland Authors Book Award in History In a time of great inequality and a gutted middle class, the dramatic story of “the strike heard around the world” is a testament to what workers can gain when they stand up for their rights. The tumultuous Flint sit-down strike of 1936-1937 was the birth of the United Auto Workers, which set the standard for wages in every industry. Midnight in Vehicle City tells the gripping story of how workers defeated General Motors, the largest industrial corporation in the world. Their victory ushered in the golden age of the American middle class and created a new kind of America, one in which every worker had a right to a share of the company’s wealth. The causes for which the strikers sat down—collective bargaining, secure retirement, better wages—enjoyed a half century of success. But now, the middle class is disappearing and economic inequality is at its highest since before the New Deal. Journalist and historian Edward McClelland brings the action-packed events of the strike back to life—through the voices of those who lived it. In vivid play-by-plays, McClelland narrates the dramatic scenes including of the takeovers of GM plants; violent showdowns between picketers and the police; Michigan governor Frank Murphy’s activation of the National Guard; the actions of the militaristic Women’s Emergency Brigade who carried billy clubs and vowed to protect strikers from police; and tense negotiations between labor leader John L. Lewis, GM chairman Alfred P. Sloan, and labor secretary Frances Perkins. The epic tale of the strike and its lasting legacy shows why the middle class is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century and will guide our understanding of what we will lose if we don’t revive it.

Download or read book Working for the Enemy written by Reinhold Billstein and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: General Motors, the largest corporation on earth today, has been the owner since 1929 of Adam Opel AG, Russelsheim, the maker of Opel cars. Ford Motor Company in 1931 built the Ford Werke factory in Cologne, now the headquarters of European Ford. In this book, historians tell the astonishing story of what happened at Opel and Ford Werke under the Third Reich, and of the aftermath today. Long before the Second World War, key American executives at Ford and General Motors were eager to do business with Nazi Germany. Ford Werke and Opel became indispensable suppliers to the German armed forces, together providing most of the trucks that later motorized the Nazi attempt to conquer Europe. After the outbreak of war in 1939, Opel converted its largest factory to warplane parts production, and both companies set up extensive maintenance and repair networks to help keep the war machine on wheels. During the war, the Nazi Reich used millions of POWs, civilians from German-occupied countries, and concentration camp prisoners as forced laborers in the German homefront economy. Starting in 1940, Ford Werke and Opel also made use of thousands of forced laborers. POWs and civilian detainees, deported to Germany by the Nazi authorities, were kept at private camps owned and managed by the companies. In the longest section of the book, ten people who were forced to work at Ford Werke recall their experiences in oral testimonies. For more than fifty years, legal and political obstacles frustrated efforts to gain compensation for Nazi-era forced labor; in the most recent case, a $12 billion lawsuit was filed against the computer giant I.B.M. by a group of Gypsy organizations. In 1998, former forced laborers filed dozens of class action lawsuits against German corporations in U.S. courts. The concluding chapter reviews the subsequent, immensely complex negotiations towards a settlement - which involved Germany, the United States, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Czech Republic, Israel and several other countries, as well as dozens of well-known German corporations.