54 DC VELOCITY MARCH 2016 www.dcvelocity.com
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Sometimes, though, car companies will decide it’s time to
make wholesale changes to a particular model, which happened this year on the Cruze. On Feb. 8, GM began producing a completely re-engineered second-generation Cruze.
In preparation for the changeover, the Lordstown operation shut down for five weeks for retooling. Among other
decisions, Comprehensive had to determine how to handle
each of the new parts for the Cruze, as only 161 of the 2,236
parts remained unchanged from the first-generation car to
the second.
As part of the overhaul, GM made wholesale changes to
its sourcing strategy. Some 70 percent of the parts in the
2015 model Cruze came from international points, with only 30 percent
sourced from North American suppliers. For 2016, that is reversed— 70
percent North American and 30 percent international.
Sourcing parts closer to home
allowed GM to cut leadtimes while
creating flexibility within its supply chain. The changes also affected
Comprehensive, as it was able to
reduce the amount of buffer stock it
keeps on hand. Since international
inventory often takes as long as 30
days to travel by water, the facility
holds about 10 days’ worth of inventory of internationally sourced parts.
For domestic products, the facility
carries just one to four days’ worth of buffer stock. As a
result of the change, Comprehensive no longer needs two
satellite buildings formerly used to house buffer stock.
While it was carrying out the retooling, Comprehensive
decided to rearrange some of the storage and processing
areas at the Austintown facility. It added narrow-aisle storage and moved some of the storage and staging areas closer
to the docks through which the products enter or exit the
facility. This has reduced forklift travel time within the
building (the facility operates a fleet of 62 electric forklifts
supplied by Clark Material Handling).
“It’s the detail we go into for every single part. We study
our standards for time and distance to provide added productivity and to improve our processes,” Lyda says.
The new generation of Cruze also requires that more
parts be sequenced for specific builds than was the case
with previous models assembled at Lordstown. “It affects
our lineside presentation, so we looked at our own layouts
to make our work more effective,” Lyda adds.
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
Among the changes made during the retooling process
was the relocation of two of the subassembly lines at the
Austintown facility. These subassembly operations repre-
sent a major value-added service that Comprehensive pro-
vides to GM. At Austintown, workers run five production
lines that pre-assemble specific sections of the Cruze vehi-
cle. The Streme software directs the manufacturing process,
acting as a manufacturing execution system.
Subassembly lines include the so-called CFRM line,
which assembles the condenser, fan, and radiator module
(this was one of the subassembly lines that was relocated).
Another subassembly line builds the front vertical, which
includes the front suspension system and front disc brakes.
A rear vertical line assembles the rear suspension, rear axle,
and rear brakes, while a front horizontal line produces the
engine cradle.
Perhaps the most complex of the
subassemblies Comprehensive builds
at Austintown are the “headliners,”
which are the interior linings for
the cars’ roofs (the headliner subassembly line was the other line to be
relocated). Though that might not
sound like a particularly complicated
component, there are actually 96 different variations of headliners for the
Cruze model, depending on color,
the type of visors, whether the car
will have a skylight or sunroof, and
the lighting and electronics packages.
As soon as it determines what
headliners it will require, Lordstown
transmits a broadcast message to
Once the subassembly line swings into operation, large
display dashboard screens on the production floor track the
units’ progress. Some of the work is carried out by robots,
which handle tasks like applying glue. Fixed cameras and
sensors measure assembly angles and tolerances to assure
that every fastener is in place and all actions have been
completed properly.
Finished headliners are placed into racks designed specifically for them, with each rack holding 19 headliners. The
production is carried out in reverse order so that the items
needed first in Lordstown are placed into the racks last.
Overall, Austintown prepares about 1,600 truckloads of
parts each week for the Lordstown assembly operation.
Comprehensive is responsible for making sure that all of
the parts are delivered on time, at the right place, and in
the right sequence for the GM plant to turn out 1,260 cars
daily, or 280,000 in a typical production year. Or to put it
another way, the 3PL’s job is to ensure that all operations
remain solidly on Cruze control.
