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GM Plant Upgrades Contribute to Manufacturing Renaissance
ORION, Mich. -- General Motors Corp. is taking advantage of new car and truck introductions to upgrade its assembly plants with the latest systems and technologies, including the GM complex at Lordstown, Ohio. Over the last three years, GM has made major refinements to several plants, including those in Oklahoma City, Okla., Fairfax, Kan., and Shreveport, La., GM officials said. This year, additional improvements are being made in Lordstown and Orion, Mich. "As we put new products in our plants, we're taking advantage of the opportunity to invest in our facilities and ensure our manufacturing competitiveness for years to come," said Guy Briggs, vice president and general manager of GM manufacturing and labor relations. The Lordstown operation is undergoing a $500 milion renovation as it gears up to produce the new Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac Pursuit. Last month, the Lordstown plant produced the final Pontiac Sunfire and this summer will end production of the Chevrolet Cavalier.Several refinements are being made to GM plants as new products are introduced, affecting manufacturing flexibility, environmental impact, and quality and productivity.With each plant conversion, GM is increasing its ability to build different vehicles on the same assembly line. A key element of that strategy is "C Flex," a programmable body shop tooling system that is replacing body style specific tooling, Briggs said.C-Flex allows multiple body panels (floor pans, deck lids, hoods, engine compartments, etc.) to be welded with the same set of programmable tools and robots, he explained. Model-specific tooling is not required. With C-Flex, GM is reducing the size of its body shops by as much as 150,000 square feet. C-Flex, along with other recent manufacturing improvements, will reduce GM's cost of introducing new products into a body shop by approximately $100 million, according to Briggs. With each plant upgrade, GM is implementing new systems and processes to reduce the impact its facilities have on the environment, company ofificials said. The plant refinements provide an opportunity to accelerate GM's efforts to reduce energy and water consumption, improve air quality, reduce waste and increase recycling and the use of renewable energy. Over the past eight years, GM has reduced its energy consumption by 22% -- enough to power 142,000 homes, the company said. Over the same period, GM has reduced water consumption by 37%, the equivalent to the amount of water used by 75,000 households in a year. Over the past decade, GM has reduced air emissions by 46%. And over the past four years, GM has reduced the total amount of waste generated by its facilities by 13.7%, which is the equivalent to the waste generated in one year by 352,000 U.S. households. As part of the upgrade process, GM also is focusing on increased operator involvement, error proofing, visual controls, problem solving and standardizing work assignments. The engineers of a new paint process that will be employed at the Lordstown plant were among those recognized Wednesday at the 28th annual "Boss" Kettering Awards cermony in Detroit. The Kettering is GM's highest internal award for recognizing GM technical inventions and innovations.Honorees included the team behind the canister powder paint delivery system, a two-canister system to apply color-specific powder paint to automotive external and internal surfaces. As one canister is in use for the painting process, the second is purging the powder from the previous job and readying for the next, allowing continuous operation in an inline system, rapid color changes and a mere eight-seconds between paint jobs. This innovation was implemented in October 2003 at the GM Baltimore Assembly plant to apply color powder primer to certain exterior surfaces of the 2004 Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari vans. It was also selected for use in the new paint shop at the GM Lordstown complex in Ohio for the application of color specific powder primer to interior surfaces of the 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt. The internal award is named for the legendary Charles F. "Boss" Kettering, who launched GM's Research and Development organization in 1920. A prolific inventor himself, Kettering held more than 140 patents. Visit General Motors at www.gm.com. "