Chrysler minivan plant here is tops in productivity
By Gregory Cancelada
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/01/2006
For the second consecutive year, DaimlerChrysler AG's South assembly plant in Fenton was the most productive minivan plant in North America, according to the 2006 Harbour Report released Thursday. But the achievement was even sweeter because the South plant narrowly beat Japanese rivals, whose minivan operations were included in the ranking for the first time.
The Harbour report, put out by Harbour Consulting Inc. of Troy, Mich., is the most closely watched gauge of productivity in the North American auto industry. It looks at the 2005 performance of North American plants owned by the Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler, General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co.
Historically, the Japanese automakers have excluded a significant number of their North American operations from the annual study. For this year's report, however, Honda and Toyota only excluded one manufacturing operation each from the study, while Nissan excluded two Mexican plants.
Overall, Nissan was the most productive automaker last year, retaking the top spot after Toyota nudged it out in 2004.
Nissan used an average of 28.46 labor hours to produce a vehicle, versus 29.40 hours at Toyota. This includes the total labor hours spent by salaried and hourly employees to stamp parts, build power trains and assemble the vehicles.
Honda, GM, Chrysler and Ford followed with 32.51, 33.19, 33.71 and 35.79 hours, respectively.
Though GM, Chrysler and Ford continued to lag their Japanese competitors, the productivity gap among automakers is steadily narrowing, according to the Harbour report.
Chrysler showed the most improvement, shaving 6 percent off the number of labor hours used to produce a vehicle.
"We continue to stay on the right track toward our ultimate goal in 2007," reducing that time to under 30 hours, Frank Ewasyshyn, Chrysler's executive vice president for manufacturing, said during a media conference call.
The South plant, where about 3,300 people work, needed 24.02 labor hours to assemble a vehicle. It makes the Dodge Caravan and Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country minivans.
However, rivals trailed by only minutes. Honda's plant in Lincoln, Ala., was second at 24.05 labor hours and Toyota's facility in Princeton, Ind., was third at 24.15 labor hours.
Despite the No. 1 ranking, the South plant's productivity worsened from 2004, when workers needed only 22.94 hours to assemble a minivan. Chrysler said workers needed more hours to assemble minivans because of last year's introduction of the Stow 'n Go seating and storage system at the South plant.
Changes in the production mix and overcapacity also caused other St. Louis area plants to experience lower productivity, a change from past years, when there were steady improvements.
Chrysler said Fenton's North assembly plant, where about 2,300 people work, needed more assembly time because of increased production of heavy-duty Ram pickups. The heavy-duty pickups are more labor-intensive because they have more content that must be installed.
Still, Ewasyshyn said the North and South plants will resume this year their trend of increasing productivity.
The Ford plant in Hazelwood also saw last year's productivity worsen due to slumping demand for Explorer SUVs. As production tum
