Chevrolet pick-ups

QUOTE from Max Depree, chairman of Herman Miller furniture and author of Leadership Jazz.

WE CANNOT BECOME WHAT WE NEED TO BE BY REMAINING WHAT WE ARE.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
1620: Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass.
1988: 270 people were killed when a terrorist bomb exploded aboard a Pan Am Boeing 747 over Locherbie, Scotland, sending wreckage crashing to the ground.

LEARNING today: This past summer we got new neighbors. They are Jim and Sue Isaacson from the Detroit area. The reason they retired to eastern Iowa is that Sue is a native from this area.

When visiting with Jim I learned a lot about the production of vehicles. Jim worked at General Motors for many years and worked his way up to being supervisor of all the computers that ran the assembly line for the production of Chevrolet pick-ups.

Jim told me that if the computers broke down and the assembly line came to a halt it cost GM $1,000 a minute until the line resumed. He had a lot of pressure on him to get the computers up and running again knowing what the cost was to GM. Jim said the profit for GM was $10,000 per pick-up and they could turn out one pick-up per minute which equals 60 pick-ups per hour. That's a profit of $60,000 per hour. In an eight hour shift that comes to $480,000, nearly a half million dollars. When Jim retired in 2008 they were down to two shifts but in previous years when GM was flying high they had three shifts.

In 2008, Jim could see the handwriting on the wall as far as the future of GM - he and some others he worked with could see the crash coming. So he and these other folks got out when the getting out was still good. Jim and the others got their full retirement. Those that stayed did not fare so well.

2009 was not a good year for GM or Chryler (less problems for Ford). With the government bail-out both GM and Chrysler are back producing vehicles and making a profit. I found Jim an interesing man to talk to. I learned a lot.

HUMOR for today:
Young man: "I can't bear fools."
Dorothy Parker: "Apparently, your mother could."