Although General Motors' full-size sport utility vehicles has failed to top their segment at the recent J.D. Power and Associates quality study, the workers at Janesville are glad to know that they built the highest-quality trucks in GM's lineup of large SUVs.
The GM's Janesville plant has currently 2,800 hourly and salaried employees topping the Arlington, Texas, and Silao, Mexico plants according to Power's annual quality study that measures problems per vehicle of new owners.
All the aforementioned plants build the Chevrolet Suburban and Tahoe and GMC Yukon XL and Yukon. Consequently, these vehicles competed in the study's "large multi-activity vehicle" segment. The Toyota Sequoia got the 1st place in the segment; the GMC products got the 3rd; and the Tahoe got the 5th spot in the six-vehicle segment.
According to John Tews of Power, SUVs made in Janesville had 73 problems for every 100 vehicles; those built in Silao had 79; and the ones made in Arlington had 92. He added that only the defects and malfunctions were recorded in the plant level; meaning workers had no control over problems on design.
Gary Malkus, the Plant Manager in Janesville, said that he was a bit disappointed for the company as a whole because according to him they build good quality products but it was sad for them to know that those are not good enough as perceived by their customers. He was amenable on the result of the Powers study that their plant placed second and third. Nonetheless, they are still aiming to get the number 1 post.
Malkus has also considered the Janesville plant's ranking ahead of the Arlington and Silao plants as not that significant. But he said that the Janesville plant did better than what those plants did. However, he did not view those plants as competitors because they are part of one company. What he considered as competition was Toyota's besting with the Sequoia.
He viewed the result as a challenge to their plant as well as to their company to look back and find out what went wrong and do necessary actions that would improve the quality of their products.
About General Motors Corporation
Also known as GM or GMC, General Motors Corporation is the 2nd (after Toyota) largest car company based on sales revenue as of 2007. Maker of quality cars and their parts, GMC has around 284,000 employees all over the world.
It was founded in 1908, in Flint, Michigan and has global headquarters located at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan, USA. In Zurich, Switzerland is their European headquarters. This American car maker produces its trucks and cars in 33 countries.
GM cars and trucks are sold under Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Vauxhall brands.
GM Parts like and accessories are known in the market under GM Performance Parts, GM Goodwrench and ACDelco brands through GM Service and Parts Operations that supplies GM dealerships and distributors all over the world. The United States is GM's largest national market. This is followed by China, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
GM is the number 1 automaker when it comes to Strategic Vision's Total Quality Index (TQI).