Operations: Page 229

Sparring Over Steel

The automotive Management Briefing Seminars held each August in the northern Michigan resort town of Traverse City generally are sedate affairs. Hosted by the University of Michigan and the Center for Automotive Research, the speeches are thought-provoking but academic, and the applause usually is little more than polite. This year, there were fireworks an emotional confrontation at the podium that

By Tom Murphy and Brian Corbett with Drew Winter • Sept. 1, 2002

Longer, Lower, Wider

My rearview mirror is crowded with 11 all-new Saab 9-3s. The procession buzzes along a country road north of Stockholm and over a lazy hilltop, where a Swedish farmer is perched, watching us roar through his rural world. Lucky for us, he fails in his attempt to write down our license plate numbers and report us to the local authorities, agitated from several days of test-driving near his house. While

By Brian Corbett • Sept. 1, 2002

Explore the Trendline➔

Automotive Manufacturing

Production strategies are changing rapidly as tariffs and shifts in consumer buying patterns affect the industry.

By WardsAuto staff

New CEO: No More Cash for Covisint

Covisint LLC's new chairman and CEO vows the auto industry's online exchange will get no more cash from its parents, should not eliminate any more jobs and will work harder to win the trust of parts producers. Harold Kutner came out of retirement June 28 to lead Covisint following the resignation of Kevin English after 14 months on the job. Kutner takes up English's promise to make Covisint profitable

By Tom Murphy • Aug. 1, 2002

INTERNET MATTERS

Suddenly there is no virtual marketplace and no credible effort to build one any time soon. Yet beginning at our desktop there's an information highway complete with expressways and rural back roads linking communities of interest to oceans of information. What has become of all the possibilities for a new frontier that was destined to forever change the way cars were bought and sold in America? First

By WITH PETER BRANDOW • Aug. 1, 2002

Web Words

You see the familiar prefix in print and broadcast ads. You jot Web addresses in your day planner and on napkins. And, of course, you use the ever-expanding potpourri of Web resources for business and pleasure. But just how familiar are you with the Web vocabulary of the early 21st century? To find out, complete this 50-question quiz. Match each of the Web terms below with the brief definitions that

By Richard Ensman • Aug. 1, 2002

Phones provide more info than you might think

When talking about information technology, the telephone gets downright dissed. Maybe it's because of its age we've been using it to communicate information since 1876. We just take it for granted. We talk about how to answer the phone properly, and how to handle those phone ups but discussion concerning IT issues usually ignores the phone. Instead, we like to talk about the latest computer technology,

By Cliff Banks • Aug. 1, 2002

The New-Definition CUV

Envision a long grade so steep and threatening, even a mountain goat could get a case of vertigo. And the dirt more like crumbs of loose, dry clay is wheel-hub deep. Now ponder a trip down this arid crater in a 5,379-lb (2,440-kg) SUV. Logic dictates gravity will assert itself, followed by slippage, uncontrolled acceleration, profanity, teeth-clenching and a loud, sudden denouement. However, the all-new

By Eric Mayne • July 1, 2002

Unlocking the future

Two images. Two totally different impressions. The first is one of ultimate security, straight out of a Tom Clancy novel: You develop an intimate relationship with your vehicle by touching your finger to a transparent square roughly the size of a postage stamp on the instrument panel. It scans your fingerprint, and with that touch, your car recognizes you as an authorized driver, knows your favorite

By Drew Winter and Tom Murphy • July 1, 2002

HOW TO CONTROL FLOOR-PLAN COSTS

I watch the monthly performance of our client dealers, looking for trends in floor-plan costs. Some dealers can consistently manage their inventory with respect to floor plan expenses. Yet other dealers with the same franchise, consistent volume and many times in the same market don't? When like conditions exist, why does one dealer have a net credit balance and another an expense? The only answer

By Tony Noland • July 1, 2002

Test of time: How well do you manage your day?

Wise sages and time management experts have reminded us for years that we can never really time. We can only spend it. How effectively do you spend time? Do you plan your time carefully, treating your minutes and hours as the truly precious resources they are? And even more important, do you spend your hours achieving the personal and professional goals important to you? How well do you really manage

By Richard Ensman • July 1, 2002

Reversal of Misfortune

Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that. Former Liverpool football manager Bill Shankly Desperate words from a fiercely competitive man, they would seem to have resonance for Nick Scheele. A keen soccer fan and zealous supporter of the English Premier League's Arsenal Football Club,

By Eric Mayne • July 1, 2002

On the Rise

Considering the industry's current cost-consciousness, there might be some difficulty believing that auto makers are willing to replace an inexpensive component with another part that costs three times as much. But that's exactly what auto makers are proposing to the aluminum industry, says Richard L. Klimisch Aluminum Assn. Inc. vice president. If we can get aluminum down to three times the price

By Brian Corbett • June 1, 2002

Choking on Congestion

Anyone who flies into Detroit, gets off the plane and drives away from the airport quickly comes to the same conclusion. Southeast Michigan has the worst roads in the nation. Not just bad roads, mind you, the worst. It's astounding how many cracks, potholes, bumps, rusty bridges, and trash-strewn vistas they can pack into every mile. I've seen better roads in poor, backward, third-world countries.

By John McElroy • June 1, 2002

Former AutoNation execs rise at JM Family Enterprises Inc.

Two executives, both with former career ties to AutoNation Inc., are rising at JM Family Enterprises in Deerfield Beach, FL. Scott Barrett, promoted to executive vp and chief information officer, will oversee the firm's information technology systems and strategies. He joined the company last year. Brent Burns, who joined JM in 2000, is promoted to executive vp of JM and president of its World Omni

June 1, 2002

Japan’s Dark Decade

TOKYO One year after taking office as a political maverick with enough charm and charisma to produce the economic reforms Japan so badly needs, Junichiro Koizumi is viewed here as a disappointment for doing too little too slowly. The economy is bottoming out, but the Japanese people realize Koizumi has done almost nothing to correct the serious problems in our economic and political system, says Mamoru

By Mack Chrysler • June 1, 2002

What would Michelangelo do as a car designer?

PHOENIX David Schembri grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood that rubs shoulders with Detroit City Airport. As a young man, he worked the midnight shift loading beer trucks at the old Stroh Brewery. His dad worked midnights maintaining assembly line equipment at the defunct Fisher Body plant nearby. We'd meet for at 2 a.m., recalls the son. That was great. Schembri's automotive career has driven him

By Steve Finlay • May 1, 2002

Expect 1, maybe 2 UAW strikes in 2003

At least one United Auto Workers' strike is next year, says auto analyst James Hall of AutoPacific. A UAW strike is usually targeted against one of the Big Three, leading to a new contract that the other auto companies take cues from in negotiating their own labor agreements. But it will be different when existing contracts expire next year. Each of the Big Three has their own set of issues, says

By Steve Finlay • May 1, 2002

CRM on the verge of something big

Customer Relationship management (CRM), which has been around for a couple of years, is on the verge of something big. It's a technological advancement that allows computer access to much more data, and the ability to use that automated information to sell more to serious prospects and repeat buyers. In the information technology world it's called integration the ability of computer systems to assimilate

By Cliff Banks • May 1, 2002

ODOMETER FRAUD KEEPS ON ROLLING

MILD-MANNERED RICHARD MORSE LEADS A LAW enforcement crusade against odometer rollbacks. Sometimes he wonders if he's making inroads as manager of the U.S. Department of Transportation's odometer fraud enforcement program. He's headed it since it began in 1978. Things haven't changed much, says Morse, whose low-key demeanor belies his federal crime fighting job as well as a 20-year stint as an Army

By Steve Finlay • May 1, 2002

Isuzu Sales Sliding South

Isuzu Motors America hopes the December launch of its new Ascender SUV will dig it out of a big sales hole in the U.S. Right now, it appears questionable whether even an aggressive restructuring program that calls for a re-freshening of several of its lackluster products, a buffing-up of its tarnished brand image and cost-cutting consolidation of its U.S. operations will be enough to turn around Isuzu's

May 1, 2002

He sold Pontiacs for six decades

Woodrow W. Woody, a Lebanese immigrant who sold Pontiacs in the Polish-American community of Hamtramck, MI, for six decades, died last month at age 94. Over the years, he became a local legend, giving $1 bills to children, donating to charities and making folksy TV commercials with his trademark sign-off, So long. See you soon. Drive carefully. When he first applied for a dealership franchise, a GM

May 1, 2002

Laser-Measurement Renaissance

DETROIT It was gee-whiz stuff in the early '80s: laser-guided gauging systems that could at a vehicle body at the end of the assembly line and compare its tolerances to the ideal, assuring that the vehicle was being assembled within specification. Since then, the auto industry has witnessed hundreds of similar process-control and assembly miracles, as electronic/optical/laser innovations came fast

By Bill Visnic • May 1, 2002

Certified used-car sales could top 1 million this year

Certified used-vehicle programs are turning up everywhere, prompting some people to ask if it's just another marketing gimmick or is the industry on to something. General Motors Corp.'s Jeff Heichel thinks the latter, as GM after getting things right with dealers who disliked the automaker's original program, vintage 1996 is getting in on the current action and setting aggressive sales goals. The

By Steve Finlay • May 1, 2002

Dealers getting more Internet-savvy

To see the 2002 Ward's e-Dealer 100, click here. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader For free download, click here. Ken Smith set a 2001 goal for Internet sales to total about 40% of his overall business. The Kellogg, ID-based dealer was off by about 22% - his 4,384 Internet sales in 2001 were 62% of his total volume. Revenue from the Internet department was 57% of the dealership's total. Smith's sales

By Cliff Banks • April 8, 2002

The ideeeeeeeeea began at dinner five years ago

The idea began at dinner five years ago Since then, dealership group's Internet sales staff has had a lot on their plates It began at dinner five years ago, according to Mirza Thomas, Internet services director for the Jim Koons Automotive Companies. Thomas, then a dealership group trainer, owner Jim Koons and vice president Jim O'Connell were dining and developing an Internet strategy. "We were very

By Cliff Banks • April 5, 2002