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Former assembly worker from area helps to get Lordstown ready to produce new GM Cruze car
By Jim Mackinnon
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Saturday, Jun 27, 2009
LORDSTOWN: Michele Lambert knows firsthand how new cars are put together.
And that's coming in mighty handy to a particularly economically vulnerable part of Northeast Ohio and to beleaguered General Motors.
Lambert, a former Lordstown assembly-line union worker, is in the midst of assembling a critically important project that basically involves redesigning much of the 5 million-square-foot factory complex.
She helps oversee the $351 million in changes at Lordstown leading to the building next year of the all-new Chevrolet Cruze compact car.
And as a native of the area — she's a graduate of Howland High School in Warren — Lambert also knows how vitally important a healthy Lordstown is to her community. Not to mention that a hit vehicle is crucial to the success of GM, struggling now under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Longtime connections
The upcoming building of the all-new Chevrolet Cruze is truly a Northeast Ohio effort.
Lambert, 35, and the mother of two children ages 7 and 8, started years ago at the giant plant as one of thousands of other workers putting together the Chevrolet Cavalier. That was the predecessor car to the current Cobalt that the factory will stop producing early next year.
Over the years, she rose through the ranks and last July was named Cruze launch manager.
She has other longtime connections to the complex, where an estimated 2,200 hourly and salaried people now work.
''My father actually retired from the plant,'' she said. He had been there 33 years.
Lambert was enrolled at nearby Youngstown State University when she began working at Lordstown.
''I was actually going to nursing school when I got hired. I worked on the line out here, summer help. And then I got hired permanently when I was in school,'' Lambert said.
She was a United Auto Workers member at the factory.
''I know what it's like to chase that chain,'' she said of the assembly line. ''It's difficult work. We were working four [10-hour days].''
Lambert became a permanent hire at the factory while still going to school full time, graduating in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in psychology.
After graduation, she was offered the position of ''per-diem'' supervisor, a union position. Six months later, she moved into management.
Except for a year's period at a GM minivan factory in Atlanta, Lambert said her career has kept her at Lordstown, working in various positions, including business manager, plant superintendent and planner.
New responsibilities
As Cruze launch manager, she heads a 15-person team that works to make sure the shift in production from Cobalt to the new car works smoothly and is done on time.
''We have a lot of people working in this facility to get it ready,'' she said.
''Basically, I'm the integration manager between the marketing, product and the plant, all of our quality initiatives, communications, so we have launch managers in each department,'' she said. ''I work with our partners in Korea and China and St. Petersburg [Russia] as well. Those are the three plants that are already building this car, their version of the Cruze.''
UAW representatives are working with the Lordstown team on such things as training and problem solving, she said.
''We have had a tremendous amount of cooperation with the UAW,'' Lambert said.
Lambert said she reports to GM's manufacturing chief engineer in Michigan, as well as to Lordstown Plant Manager John Donahoe.
''I feel privileged to be part of this team,'' Lambert said. ''We are very excited.''
Making changes
The goal isn't just to get the factory ready to make a new vehicle, but to make the plant much more productive by improving the manufacturing processes, she said.
The changes being made are aimed at such things as reducing waste from the main-line operators and increasing their value-added percentage, Lambert said.
''All of our complexity will be pushed back into the system,'' she said. ''This will provide us the opportunity to react to market volumes more quickly, other models more quickly, because that waste will be pushed back into the system.''
The changes include such things as looking at streamlining operations so workers don't waste steps, which in turn uses up time that could be put to more valuable use, Lambert said.
That includes modifying how parts and materials are brought into the factory and brought to the line, including putting parts in a bin inside each vehicle instead of on benches along the line.
With this kind of ''compression,'' the changes move all the material into the operator so they are not taking any steps to a bench, Lambert said. All the work that they are going to do, measured in minutes per hour, will be in the car so they are not wasting time walking or moving material around, she said.
In addition, Lordstown will make maximum re-use of equipment from other now-shuttered GM plants, including tools and hundreds of robots, she said.
So far, so good, she said.
''We're on time right now,'' Lambert said.
''We'll start building our first Cruze online in the body shop at the end of August,'' Lambert said, with assembly in the rest of the plant by the middle of September.
Those will be the initial test and preproduction vehicles. Lordstown is scheduled to continue making Cobalts until the end of March 2010, with the first production Cruzes coming off the revamped assembly line in April. The schedule calls for the Cruze, designated as a 2011 model, to go on sale in dealer showrooms sometime in May or June.
''The Cruze is not intended to replace the Cobalt,'' Lambert said. ''The Cruze is a little bit bigger vehicle. And it's going to be, for a customer, decked out like you would want. So you get the fuel economy, you get the plushness . . . of the nicer vehicle.''
Lambert said she feels honored to be part of the process of introducing the Cruze.
''This plant is such an important part of this community,'' she said. ''We've made such strides [at Lordstown] the last few years. And the car will show it.''
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.
LORDSTOWN: Michele Lambert knows firsthand how new cars are put together.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Posted 09:57 AM, 06/27/2009
This article confuse me. I seriously doubt that a 1997 psych. major has been "plant superintendent".
Hudson, OH
Posted 10:30 AM, 06/27/2009
Why not?
stow, oh
Posted 11:07 AM, 06/27/2009
If the UAW has a hand it it, look for failure.
Akron, OH
Posted 12:01 PM, 06/27/2009
NEW YORK (AP) — General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday as part of the Obama administration's plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size and give a majority ownership stake to the federal government.
GM's bankruptcy filing is the fourth-largest in U.S. history and the largest for an industrial company.
The company said it has $172.81 billion in debt and $82.29 billion in assets.
As it reorganizes, the fallen icon of American industrial will rely on $30 billion of additional financial assistance from the Treasury Department and $9.5 billion from Canada. That's on top of about $20 billion in taxpayer money GM already has received in the form of low-interest loans. . .
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hAN4k2QdGlz42IarQyPi9bQDpT3wD98HTTUG3
Uniontown, Oh
Posted 12:25 PM, 06/27/2009
I don't understand the point of the "Believe God" person above. They quote an article. Such news, we already know. Does, "Believe God" have an opinion?
Mine- GM really needs to get it right, with this over sized-economy car.
The ignorant above suggest the unions are at fault. Duh, unions didn't give the company direction, that's not what they do. Problem is, the management directed the company. Ford still is in business. Different management. Hoover is not... different management.
Blame, blame. a common symptom of a quitter.
GM, like many corporations, look for management employees from within the rank and file. Employees that can endure detailed study, and the discipline of getting a college degree. Employees that can understand theory and involved processes. That is more important than the specific degree earned.
Michele Lambert demonstrated an ability to work on an assembly line, learn with discipline, communicate and cooperate with coworkers and superiors.
I certainly understand why she transitioned from hourly (union) to management. She had skill, talent, discipline, and the ability to communicate effectively.
She also didn't dwell on blaming, union or management.
Orrville, Oh
Posted 12:41 PM, 06/27/2009
It’s a shame GM, Chinese, Foreign and Domestic Investors and Stockholders (money marketers) don’t know or care; that Natural Law: what Mother Nature, God, or Whatever Power decreed to be the reality of the real world, democracy, capitalism, the US Constitution, and free, fair, and affordable commerce demands. Every corporation, farmer, business, outsourcer sweatshop, and nonprofit, tax-exempt, organization and Church markets the cost in the wholesale and retail price of his or her product and service; Of consumers paying for the new GM Chevrolet Cruze; every workers, consumers, and taxpayers living (including pension and health care). Enabling parents to love, nurse, nurture, discipline, protect, and provide, for every child (job) they conceive and fund schools, infrastructure, national security, government services, and etc.; with money derived from wages or independent business profit!
Posted 03:04 PM, 06/27/2009
Four ten hour days watching machines build cars...that is a joke!
Posted 05:58 PM, 06/27/2009
Someday were going to look back and "pine" for those good paying union jobs. This country needs a manufacturing base.
Posted 10:02 PM, 06/27/2009
Re: JSS-
The article indicates that GM has "launch managers in each department."
She currently reports to, and through, the Plant Superintendent.
GM Lordstown has been staffed through a system of nepotism, i.e., employees are given the opportunity to hand deliver "applications" of friends and relatives before the positions are advertised to the outsside.
Posted 11:28 PM, 06/27/2009
Uniontownone,
I like your take on things. You get it in writing so clear.
Loren, in your first sentence I thought you kinda had a good start going there ! Sometime, let us know what you really think, instead of just the paste stuff. Let down the wall !
