In '02 we had another good year in improving productivity in salaried work force. What we're trying to do is make this a regular mind set around here, ... You can't have an ounce of fat these days and meet the pricing and the investments and the profitability targets we're shooting for. |
In his current assignment, Mike has led the team that has helped GM gain back market share in California. He's built strong relationships with dealers and employees in creating marketing initiatives, all of which should prove especially useful as we focus on additional key markets where we need to improve GM's performance. |
In order to improve financial results in 2006 and 2007, we are moving quickly to implement several important actions that will address these weaknesses in North America. And we have a good line of sight on the steps we need to take to further reduce structural costs on a global basis that will position GM for long-term success. |
It comes with the turf, though. |
It was a year in which two significant fundamental weaknesses in our North American operations were fully exposed - our huge legacy cost burden and our inability to adjust structural costs in line with revenue. |
It's a big move ... We're confident that this is what it's going to take to get us going, |
It's clear that the U.S. market and economic conditions have become significantly more uncertain. Overall we remain very bullish on the prospects for the auto industry in the U.S. and globally but at this point we are viewing the U.S. economy and auto market environment with considerable caution. |
It's not an easy decision. We don't have many plants that aren't high quality and very productive. |
It's one factor that's important in our overall cost competitiveness. I can't tell you it's the only or the primary thing for us, |
Jerry brings years of business experience and knowledge of the automotive industry to the GM board. We are pleased to welcome him to our Board. |
Most of the model consolidation we've done is behind us. There will be some fine tuning. |
Oklahoma City, (which makes the mid-sized SUV) is a very good plant but a classic example of ... just having too much capacity in that segment, ... That's why that plant in on the list today. We don't have any plants left that aren't very high quality and quite productive. I'm sure I'm not going to satisfy any plant as why they've been chosen to be on the list. |
One of our biggest challenges is our lack of cost-competitiveness in the United States, which is due to our legacy costs, especially the ever-increasing burden of high health-care expenses, ... Addressing this challenge in a fair and equitable way requires close work with our union partners, in addition to our ongoing work with government and health-care providers. Gary is the ideal person to do this. |
Our fate is going to be determined in the next three to five years on getting this business in the U.S. turned around and profitable, |
Our financial performance continues to be quite disappointing, |