A co-worker of mine in 1985 bought a high-level Oldsmobile 88. One of it "features" was a pull strap on the door panel in addition to the arm rest. Having never owned a car with pull straps he continued to use the depression in the arm rest to close the door. He was disturbed to find that after a month or so, it was obvious that the arm rests were loosening and coming off the door. He took it to the dealer and was told that there was a TSB to solve the problem. It turns out that the standard cars, without a pull strap, used a 1 1/2" screw to secure the armrest. However if your car had the pull straps, you were expected to use those to close the door and to save money those cars had the armrest mounted with a 1" screw! This was not enough to withstand the force most people used to pull the door closed with the armrest. Even the dealer had a hard time explaining why such a minor ridiculous money saving part was used.
...and they probably paid a systems analyst to come up with that, printed up reams of technical bulletins (typed with a few less characters,) paid for modifications to plant and operating procedure and wound up incurring a loss.
@saxongreen78 THIS. If you just do it right you never have to worry about TSBs, recalls, and all the PR and extra communication and energy involved with them.
I wonder how many of the low series cars were misbuilt with the shorter screw because the GM assembly plant couldn’t error proof this silly effort at cost reduction.
My Dad started his career at GM in 1984. Everything (and then some) that was said in this video is 100% true. He often brought up these kinds of things in conversations about the management structure of old GM, when they truly were a behemoth. He furnished our entire house when he got married with “incentive” merchandise he earned from all of the quality/cost savings suggestions he submitted. The days prior to the eventual divestiture of most non-core divisions and industries during the 1990s were really the last gasp of the “On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors” days. I don’t think people realize that today’s GM, although still a large company, is but a mere fraction of the archaic Corporation it once was.
I worked at the local Chevy dealership in 1989-90 in the parts department, and I remember that archaic Corporation lol. It seemed like everywhere you turned there, there was evidence of these motivational thrift programs that more or less all ended up just cluttering the place, and which no one really took to heart. I've wondered many times how tall the stack of paper that GM ran on in the pre-digital days would be. And I'll agree, at least with the dealerships, they do seem to be much leaner than back in those days.
When I worked at GM, they saved labor costs by 1) hiring foreigners for 20-30% less than paying Americans and 2) hiring contractors and furloughing them for 20-24 days a year, essentially paying the contractor 11 months for 12 months of commitment. I had no idea about the chisling costs by the letter. Hire a cheaper typist, I’ve seen that all day long.
The irony there is that a cheaper typist would have earned less pay because they couldn't type as many words per minute as a more costly one, and for other things that made them less efficient per dollar spent. Another great example of false economy.
Indeed, GM's corrupt labor practices are one of many bitter fruits of Milton Friedman and his hell spawn, Thatcherism which, BTW, metastasized into Reaganomics. What is the core of Reaganomics? The malevolent idea that the shareholders are the only reason for an enterprise to exist and they must be the first priority. Employees and vendors are fungible. The evil in that thinking is beyond the scope of this brief comment. Our elite and ruling classes don't understand (don't want to) that, if you want a 1st world economy, you must have 1st world working and middle classes WITH the pay of a 1st world economy. A simulacrum 1st world economy can be temporarily faked if lower pay is supplemented with cheap credit (debt). That is not sustainable and can only lead to defacto slavery. But, where do all the profits gained from cheap labor go to? The Top 1%, the shareholders, and other forms of elite dead weight. Does anybody remember FDR's New Deal and why it worked in the 20th century? LABOR gets paid FIRST. Then, I'll add, company operations, then vendors, and then upper management. Lastly, the shareholders. Since when does holding a fractional ownership in the company justify being paid first? Only in the perverse minds of Milton Friedman and his gullible dupes who believe in neoliberal economics.
I've had that done to me years ago as well, it was because then they could say I wasn't full time employee and didnt have to offer benefits if they laid me off for a week or two every year and then re-hired me.
It's interesting about working over 35 years..Old guys use to tell me when I started that there are only two reasons that a guy would want to work over 35 years at General Motors....The first was they didn't want to be home with their wives and the second was their wives wouldn't let them quit...lol
As a GM employee who started in 1971.I always wondered what the "employe" thing was..I knew it was wrong but I figured it was just "The Mark of Excellence" being stylish..Thanks for pointing that out..
Dictionary publishing companies used to place a 'fake' word ever so often in their pages to deter another publisher from directly copying their work. Don't know if that still happens or not.
@Colorado_Native : Map makers back in the day used to do basically the same thing. They used to add things to their map version for copyright protection like Islands that really didn't exist, they made-up town and city names and sometimes put volcanos or rivers in an area where none actually existed.
I wonder how many people typed "gauges" then thought "Oops, no, that's not right. I don't want to get in trouble." Then got out the White-Out, covered up "uges", waited for it to dry, backed up the platen, typed "ges", and continued on? And how much did that cost?!?!?! 😁 A perfect example of "Penny wise but pound foolish"!
Yea plus they needed someone to spend a bunch of time dreaming this stuff up and discussing it and then putting out a style guide which had to be approved and updated and printed and distributed to everybody and then used as a reference whenever anyone created any internal documents... definitely cost them money in the long run.
I'd say the strangest thing GM ever did was to put out the exact same car across all of their brands and think the public would buy it that they were worth different amounts of money.
the theory I heard was they did to crowd out other brands dealerships given that most cities don't have that many retail lot zoned for dealerships if you had say Chevy a Saturn dealer maybe a Buick dealer in your town there was less retail space for Nissan or Toyota for example
It works sometimes. Look at how many Cutlasses they sold. Or J-bodies. Still works today. Porsche, Bentley, Audi, Lamborghini; they're all just Volkswagens.
I think those of the Greatest Generation had a soft spot in their hearts for their favorite GM makes of automobile, even though the real differences between them gradually disappeared. Who would buy a luxury Buick in the early 70s, who wouldn’t also be impressed with a luxury Oldsmobile? The interiors were both luxurious, engines were identical in size if not in design, options were unlimited and nearly identical in both. Fast forward to the 1990s-2000 and on, the business model for GM started showing major cracks in its foundation. One make was now virtually the same as the other. So you could buy based on price, or buy from your favorite dealer. Succeeding generations are not tied to brand at all, if they even drive. They just want a “car” that moves them from point A to point B with as little problem as possible, and with as little maintenance as possible. The brand mystique is gone. Just give them a “car.” Kind of sad.
@@johnlandacre767 You actually made GM’s (at the time) point. If you were looking at a Buick but equally impressed by an Oldsmobile, there is less chance you are going to look at a Mercury, Lincoln or Chrysler. If GM gave you four options in the higher end range (Buick/Olds/Pontiac/Cadillac) there was a stronger chance you would buy a car from GM. It DID work for a long time. There was a period when GM held over 50% of the car market by itself (52% if I remember correctly).
Crazy that they remove the U from gauge but leave “trip monitor” and “diagnostic” spelled out completely. Could have easily went with TRIP MON and DIAG.
That "cost saving" measure probably cost them more in the long run, sort of like all the business GM lost when they rushed Vega into production or when their mid size sedans in the late 70s/early 80s had stationary rear windows.
I'm amazed that they kept the fixed rear windows all through the life cycle of the G-body sedans. The Chrysler's K-cars had them for 1 or 2 years, after which they got roll-down windows. Tilting rear windows would not have been so bad if they opened at both the front and rear (there are several ways to do that), but the way both GM and Chrysler implemented them made them useless if the front windows were closed.
Employe-absolutely true at all the divisions I worked at, Cadillac, Buick, Chevy, GMC Truck, and Milford Proving Ground (not Grounds-didn’t need the extra “s”-saved valuable mainframe space). 😂😂
GM’s practice of changing universally accepted spellings has an undertone of 1984 about it, a corporation so large and powerful that it institutes grammatical changes in communication between its workers. Weird.
Given the amount of executives in GM, who MUST make 200% more than a factory worker or engineer etc. Of course they need to cut costs everywhere else...
Kind of ironic how about the time GM started focusing on such "micro" issues to save money, time and mainframe space, their "macro" business was going down the toilet and they were producing uninspired garbage that they couldn't get right out of the gate and only in the third or fourth model year did they finally get things right only to ultimately cancel the car because nobody was buying it by the time they got it sorted. Talk about taking your eyes off the ball! Perhaps if they had just focused all of that energy on building cars and doing it right things may have turned out differently for them in those doldrum years.
The domestic big 3’s bloated structures throughout the organizations left over from their dominant market share in the 50’s and 60’s crippled them in the 70’s when the dynamics of the industry changed so dramatically. To this day they are struggling to compete against lower cost producers that could allocate more $ towards the product the consumers receives.
Indeed. During the malaise era, Japan Inc. was eating Detroit's lunch, not because Kanji characters used less computer RAM (they didn't), but because Japanese workers were working hard 5 days a week to _earn_ that lunch. Of course, Japan soon lost to China, who had slave labor with which to undercut prices...
Don't get me wrong, the build quality and craftsmanship of US cars in the 70s, 80s, 90s were absolutely tragic, but I would not call them uninspired. I would even call some of them very exciting and still looking great today.
I worked in "parts" at a dealer & shops (body & repair) got 45-50% off MSRP, & we still made money. The manufacturer did not make less, we (dealer) paid the same for all parts. In short, the dealer is who screws you when paying them $15 for a wiper blade insert!
I can't wait for your presentation on why Ford Motor Company deleted all of their economy cars. If one wants an economy car, or even a middle of the road car, it won't be a Ford. Thank you for your premium presentations.
Zero to negative market growth in cars and margins are nil to negative as well. So those lines have been abandoned/left to the low cost Asian manufacturers (and even they seem to be giving up on them - young buyers just don’t desire them and older buyer are literally dying out.
@@gordtulkYes, large pick-up trucks seem to be all the rage. However, I think it comes down to availability. I own several collector vehicles and I would like an AMERICAN made daily driver. Thank you,
@@gordtulk Part of that shift has been fueled by extraordinarily low financing costs over the past 15 years. From what I've heard, as interest rates have risen recently, there has been a slow shift back to cheaper vehicles.
5-10% return is pretty good Adam. I work for an airline, though my airline competes in the freight and logistics industry. Most airlines work in the Travel and Leisure industry, and if you examine the financials over the last 40 years you will find the astounding fact that passenger airlines have historically operated on a 2% margin! Airlines work due to cash flow; Lots of cash coming in and lots of it going out due to enormous expenses and a fast pace that allows shenanigans to take place. This fact attracts "shysters" like Frank Lorenzo and Carl Icahn, both of whom have RUINED airlines. I fly cargo as a result. I wrote a term paper about this in college.... Great video!
didn't know ichon was in aviation. He killed many good brands in the auto industry also. Dropped wages to 1990s levels, cut staffing, then locations went out of business as all good workers left.
I worked at Willow Run Hydra-matic in the late 80's. I definitely remember "employe". There were a few others too but can't think of them right now. If my memory serves me, they always spelled it "colour" instead of "color" which goes against the thought process presented here. Overall, it seemed to me that GM would spend 100 grand to save a dime. I thought it was a very strange and inefficient culture.
Color vs Colour may have just been because GM is a US-based company. Color without the u is the correct spelling in US-English. It's the same with honor, favor, humor, and many other words that normally end in -our.
@@squirrel8296We know that. GM was using British English. As an American company in the United states. You haven't provided any enlightenment as to why.
Yes, the Taurus was a fine example of a US automaker turning things around with a new emphasis on quality and styling, as well as economy. The Taurus SHO brought back the concept of a sedan that could get out of its own way. That was the start of a new era of American cars that were stylish and performed well.
I worked for GM in 1988. Employe was used and of course was on most of the documents given to new-hires. At the time I thought it must have come from a misspelling on a previous CEO's memo that nobody had the balls to correct. But hey, it saved a byte on every superfluous document stored on their EDS computers.
I remember a lot of these "mispelled" words in Mt days working with the big three. Another way of cost saving that came about the same time was the use of acronyms. When I moved into the aerospace field, I noticed this was very relevant. With Boeing, it seems that every time more than 3 words (sometimes 2 words) are used together more than once, it becomes an acronym from then on. It is hard to keep track of them all!
No corporate officer is worth more than one million dollars, no stock options either. Bonuses should be applied to all employees, and if no profit, no bonus. This is sensible as everyone is replaceable unless you are the majority owner of the company. This thinking will make more companies much more productive and profitable
Ah, I remember the 'Check Gages' warning in my 94 Grand Am. With that dash having full instrumentation, it took a minute to find which 'gage' was displaying a problem. It also didn't help that the warning light was buried to the left of the steering column where it was obscured. They probably did that to save money rather display an actual warning for the corresponding gauge. Speaking of GMs vocabulary, they for some reason loved to used the word 'cassette' for things that did not mean audio equipment.
This is due to "cassette" being defined as a non-audio noun. Noun - cassette - define as: A small flat case containing magnetic tape on two reels, used to record and play back audio and video material. Any similar small cartridge, such as for a computer disk or cassette air conditioner (photography) A lightproof container for photographic film. (genetics) A modular DNA sequence encoding one or more genes for a single biochemical function. (cycling) A set of sprockets mounted onto a splined shaft on the free hub. A saggar (ceramic container used in a kiln)
This is true….I worked writing GM Service Manuals at the time. The style guide for service implied that in a 500 page manual the shortened words would save “several pages” off the finished product and thus lower printing costs.
I’d have to find my old SIPS guide, I know there were a few others. They pushed for Acronyms ruthlessly. O2 not oxygen sensor. TCC not Torque Convertor Clutch. Also double spaces after a period were eliminated. I think there was a period of time where everything was “thru” not “through” because I remember having to change them all back. When the manuals went to multiple volumes for one vehicle thats when all shortening demands came.
GM wasn’t the only one with alternate spelling. My 1956 Packards have “Liter” on the cigar lighter bezel on the dash, but “Lights” on the light switch. They also spelled “distributers” for over fifty years for the folks who handled sales between the dealers and the factory.
I still spell employe with one e. This goes way back to the 1920's when GM hired "efficiency experts" that were all the rage at that time. These guys did all sorts of time and motion studies and and tried to find ways to eliminate unnecessary steps.
The worst mistake to save costs was the cheapo interior binge GM went on for MY 1995. They cheaped out on interiors to the extreme accross their entire lineup. GM why are you cutting corners where its painfully visable? Gez you sat inside any chevy back then and thought no thanks Ill get ANY OTHER CAR
The 97 Buick Riviera used a plastic molded clip to hold down the center armrest cover, a part subject to abuse by driver's arms. The clip would break, and you could repair it only by buying a completely new leather armrest cover, a $400. part. I machined my own replacement clip out of 1/4" black acrylic, very solid, hasn't broken yet. The original part should have been metal, and it would have helped to convey an impression of quality, and not break.
GM: Take letters out of words, save money. Honda: Make connecting rods more consistent, reducing excess weight by reducing the extra tab on the top, reduce weight, costs, make engine more responsive
I have read GM CEO Roger Smith had some horrible ideas like combining divisions into little cars; C-P-C (Chevy Pontiac Canada) & big cars; B-O-C (Buick Olds Cadillac), but it really all comes down to a question asked in the ‘70s to the CEOs of Toyota & GM “is your company out to build the best car in the world or the one that make the most money?” -we all know the answer.
I remember this at GM. I worked at GM Truck Engineering in Pontiac from 1988 to 1995. Other cost savings measures that GM introduced in the early 90s was they forced all salaried employe(e)s to take one (or maybe it was two) weeks of vacation in the summer all at the same time. The idea was that the company would save money in being able to shut down certain parts of operations, offices, all at once to save on operating costs. The other cost saver in the early 90s was that GM delayed issuing one pay check by 2 weeks for all salaried employe(e)s and then combined the payment with the next paycheck. They did this only once when I was there. I don't recall the actual reason for this action but I recall it was to help keep the company from falling deeper into the "red" financially.
GM, the King of cost cutting, pinching pennies, and cutting corners. Over the years I've come to adopt a new term with how cheap things are and feel. Cheap, and GM cheap. As a person who works with a Tier 1 supplier for GM, I can vouch for their cheapness. And they're allegedly in the crapper again according to rumors that I'm hearing.
The big 3 are already the big 2 and a half after Chrysler needed to link up with Fiat after the Great Recession. Only a matter of time until further consolidation/mergers are required. The legacy weight of their higher cost structures vs. competitors is unavoidable.
But ev are not able to easily last 20 years or 300k miles like most late 70s on up cars can. So every 10 years you need a new car and old one must be scrapped
This is 100% true! I did not work at GM but the company I worked for brought in an Innovation and Efficiency Exec from GM. He took the “employee” saving to a new level - first, let’s shorten it to FTE. Ok, I sort of get it. Then, after a trip to Japan to learn about Kaizen methods, he adjusted the style guidelines that “employees” would be referred to as “EE”. Hey, 33% improvement on one short form likely saved the company billions. Nah, ended up with countless discussions about “remind me what is EE is again? Did we hire Elwood Engel?” . Classic stuff.
It's just we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be greeaat.
I’m surprised they didn’t continue with all words with double letters like Wel for Well, Comite for Committee, etc. Maybe that would’ve been too much like Newspeak from Orwell’s 1984.
And I thought it was chintzy when VW wired both dashboard turn signal indicators together instead of connecting the left and right ones to their respective lights. The alternate spellings might have saved something significant when space was limited on displays and in the areas around buttons and knobs, but I can't imagine them ever paying off in reduced office costs.
Well GM has always been known to do stupid things. Having a rule not allowing anything over 400 ci in the small cars during the muscle car race. Interesting to see how far they took their terrible decision making.
Enlightening, thanks for the info. My mom always said swatting at knats while swallowing camels for this kind of nonsense!!!! Dad’s 86 Monte Carlo always requires a solid pull to get the door to shut right and it is low mileage garage kept. I remember the 76 Monte Carlo he had before used plastic for the glove box door hinge. We hardly ever opened it for fear it would be the last time before it fell off. His 78 K10 was so cheap it didn’t have a dome light just a single light under the dash that only came on with the driver’s door. Now that savings! That said we liked GM and had good service from them. Very good styling for the most part but you just wonder “what were they thinking?”
@@dougkabler3032 Yes two tone would make sense but dad’s truck was solid maroon. The interior was kind of medium red and the door panels were contoured with no trim at all and they got scaly during the 10 years we had it even though it was kept under a deck on their house. It was a 350 automatic full time 4wheel drive and 80 mph was about it.
It has always bugged me how GM spelled 'gauges' even when there was room in the dashboard for the whole word. Thank you for clearing up this for me. I always said: "gaggees" whenever I saw that word.
Apparently, nobody read the first one about quality because they were so far from the best throughout most of those years, they could not see 1st place with binoculars.
7 місяців тому
Ha! I overworked one of those paper cutters, nearly every night working for Warner Bros in 2002! I eventually started taking my huge stacks of mini-sides, call sheets, etc., down to the carpentry shop and using their band saw.
The trunk light in my Olds Intrigue was held in by scotch tape. I asked the dealer if this was a mistakeand and he said no. I then asked for a part number for the scotch tape.
My Dad was a GM engineer for 45yrs Columbus Ohio. I used to ask about things I thought would be productive improvements and he would always say if it cost 25cents more to build a car they wouldn’t consider it.
This made me laugh. I started working at the GM Tech Center in 1994 and saw this first hand. I recall my first day pulling into the parking lot and saw a sign that said “Employe Parking” and was absolutely confused.
When I was working on my MBA way back we took a course on cost savings. I have forgotten the exact numbers,, but the example was if GM could save one cent on each valve stem that would be five cents per vehicle. If they sold 4,000,000 vehicles that would be a savings of $200,000 per year. Not too bad really.
Ah, this was before some bright spark in Accounting realized that a can of Fix-a-Flat costs virtually nothing compared to the price of a donut spare and got them down to _four_ valve stems per car. :)
@@dj33036 Using My Cousin Vinny's voice, "Let's see, we could sell the car for two cents less, or we can pocket the five cents. Boy, that's a tough one. We're going for the extra profit. The dealers can mark it down if they want to."
But cutting costs is not equivalent to increasing revenue. The cuts that make a product cheaper to make, make it cheaper period. And a cheaper product means a smaller profit margin. If the seller tries to hide the cost-cutting from the consumer, that might work a time or two, but it invites competition from others who either pass more of the savings along to the customer, or who don't cut costs and claim to have a better product for it. And when the consumer is weary of constant quality cuts, that can be a strong incentive.
You forgot another cost saving derived from the "Alternate" word spelling benefit. Typewriter ribbons! Over a number of years the reduction in the size of words by a letter (or two) could reduce the number of ribbons utilized. Further, the reduction of the number of ribbons used would also allow for an additional cost savings as the typist would then spend less TIME in changing these additional ribbons. As a teen I would routinely toss what I felt were "unnecessary" fasteners when reassembling a project. Then it kit me - if the manufacturer could get away without it they would!
My Mother worked for GM at the Trim Plant here in Windsor Ont. Some the stuff they implemented at that place was idiotic, so i believe everything you said in this video 😊
Decades ago I noticed GM's spellings for gages in owners' manuals and service manuals. I looked it up and sure enough it was an acceptable alternate spelling, but I still don't see others using them.
This reminds me of a Quotable Quote I saw in a Readers Digest. "Sometimes management decisions made by a majority simply reflect that all of the educated idiots came to work that day."
Re: the buckslip. Through a professional acquaintance, I was introduced to an ad executive at Proctor & Gamble in the early '80s. I remember him telling me that part of the P&G business culture required that memos could not be more than a page long (in fact, there might've been a word count or paragraph count that would assure a memo would end up shorter than one page) and as part of your memo's contents, you would provide references to additional documentation or reporting that was available, should the recipient want to know more.
Makes perfect sense to be concise, to reduce the size of a memo to a single page, therefore eliminating the need for duplicating and collating copies and having to staple the pages together.
It only says to me the management don't give a shit about the content because they don't read any of the memos, what they want is an "Classics Illustrated" version of the memo sent to them business card size.
I’m betting that whatever McKinsey-esque analysis went into deducing some operational efficiency benefit leading to alternate spellings probably neutralized desired cost benefit 😀
I don't really remember ever noticing any creative spellings from GM, but I do remember in the early-to-mid '80s when our neighbors got a new Century, and they were dumbfounded by the fuel gauge, which said "Empty - 1/4 - 2/4 - 3/4 - Full." They wanted to know why it didn't say 1/2 instead of 2/4!😆 I think I made some comment about common denominators... We had an '82 Skylark and an '83 LeSabre at the time, and I'm pretty sure the Skylark was that way.
Having worked 40 years in the aviation power plant design/manufacturing business I recall folks who came in from the auto industry were amazed that our profit margins were rarely less than 10% and more typically 15-25% on most products lines.
Just a few off-topic comments about your GM Building thumbnail photo: In early 1964, I went into the first-floor showroom, walked over to a red GTO, got in, and pronounced that the time of the youth market had arrived. A year later, late one night, right outside that same showroom, I first put my foot into the throttle of a 1965 Tri-power GTO belonging to a friend of mine. The proximity of the incidents was not lost on me. Then, in October 1968, just as the Tigers won the World Series, I was driving by the building when suddenly the air was filled with the trash dumped from a hundred waste baskets as the GM employees expressed their joy. There was a time when Detroit was good.
"Employe" was less about the keystroke time savings and more about the toner savings. Remember: before email, every written communication had to be printed and distributed. GM had (has?) a suggestion program that will pay employes (see?) for the cost savings of their suggestion up to a maximum amount (I forget what % and max). When I started there I asked about the "employe" spelling and was told it was from the suggestion program and the individual received a maximum award.
It was started at GM in the 1920's. No printers back then, just entire floors of the old GM building staffed by hundreds of clerks and secretaries, each with a typewriter.
You know I'm beginning to understand why they went bankrupt. Save money by not typing characters, cutting the corner off papers, but the CEO memo comes out on an offset-print parchment?
I'm a dairy manager in a high volume store We work on 1cent per dollar Although people have to shop weekly and if you want to live you have to eat still 1 cent is one cent One accident on that paper cutter nullifies the savings on the buck slip big companies love to watch pennies and waste dollars
I stated GM in 1986, yup one 'e' at the end of employee. Also, learned so many buzz terms like, lock-step & deep-dive etc. Plus, I found I was unsubscribed from your channel? Anyone else? Yes, I subscribed again.
THANK YOU! I've been telling that 'employe' story for years and nobody believed me or thought I was strange (lol). I first learned of this in college as my major was Industrial Management in Oshawa. The professor had told us it was used mostly on employee pay stubs when the clerks (and later printers) typed the word 'employe'. It was thought to not only save person hours time, but also ink costs. That was our professors story of this..
I went to work for GM in 1990, and having come from one of the big national accounting firms, it was quite the culture shock to discover that they spelled employee with only one e on the end. It was about the time when we all got computers on our desks using Microsoft Word for DOS that GM came to its senses and started spelling words correctly. Spellcheck was an issue. Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I think they actually reprogrammed spellcheck! (or tried to) I wasted more time having to go back and change "employee" to "employe".
Very interesting facts, thank you. However... it is for me now easy to understand why they lost the market and are no longer top dog... A professor once said to me: the best way to reduce costs is to close the company. Costs are obviously 0 then. Of course he made this statement to make a point. Any company shall always focus on improving products, margin and marketshare. Cost cutting, and I have been there many times, in my experience always is the beginning of the end...
One of my favorite features of your channel is all the inside info and stories that you bring. Some will mock some of these efforts, and some probably don't make sense but people need to realize that gm was a mammoth organization and every bit of process improvement, etc could mean millions more profit out of the same amount of sales
The opening shot of the old GM building shows what was a classic particularly compared to the international style of the RenCen tower. Unfortunate that they abandoned the fine architecture of the original. Seems more likely that "gages" was not a cost cutter when you consider they could have used "diags" (or "data" or "test" or "perf") instead of "diagnostic". "we are going to need the new cover sheets on the TPS reports, mkay. I'll make sure you get another copy of the memo, mkay"
Left GM 3 years ago and you could still find the "employe" spelling left overs from time to time. I remember finding an old sign at Milford and someone had to explained to me the whole cost saving thing from back in the day.
Shortening "gauges" to "gages" did actually have a genuine cost saving in that when it was printed for use in manuals, brochures or even in the car it self, it would have saved a couple of cents per unit. By that I mean, by omitting the U, to print the decal for the trip computer would cost 1cent LESS than if they printed the U. Multiply that over a few million cars and that's actually a real saving, especially when you look at other methods to save cost. Even when printing the manuals and brochures, alot of the time it's priced per character. You omit a character here and there and suddenly you're looking at a print job that could be a dollar cheaper per unit. Multiply that doller saving over how many brochures or manuals are printed and again, that's a real saving. It's also why alot of the time the brochures would be effectively reused for different model years with abit of airbrush editing on the photos, it's cheaper to airbrush than to organise a formal photoshoot. And the brochures theselves can be signs of cost savings. I've got a 1983 and a 1985 Cadillac brochure in my collection, the 1983 has a lovely heavy linen card with diebossed emblem and script cover with nice heavy, full colour pages. The 1985 is still full colour and high end but compared to the 1983 it's cover is just heavier card than the pages and the pages themselves are lighter than the 1983 brochure, something I only really noticed after working in the printing industry. As a matter of interest, the print company I worked for did a price comparison with the 2 brocures based on our current pricing at the time and the 1983 brochure would have been 50% more expensive to produce than the 1985 brochure.
The problem there is that the number of cars with that fancy CRT display was closer to hundreds than millions. And they don't use decals; the button markings are printed on by a mcahine that has a die that strikes a ribbon that runs the entire width of the bezel. For every new bezel, the ribbon advances the full width. You could have "War and Peace" written on the bezel, and the cost would be the same.
GM and Toyota would leave a vehicle's engine 1/2 quart low on oil from the factory to save money. Cha Ching! Hilarious about words. Never knew. Thanks Adam!
Nothing really to do with this video, but there’s a video on UA-cam showing how GM figured they could save money by transporting the VEGA vertically in special rail cars. It actually wound up costing them MORE to ship them that way.
You can bet there was no cost cutting on the executives million dollar salaries. If they were that desperate to save a penny it makes you wonder how many corners were cut making the cars.
It seems like the climate controls were targeted heavily for shorter words. Note how they used "HI" and "LO" for the speeds, instead of the full "HIGH" and "LOW" words. There were also some cases where the dial read "DE-ICE", but that was shortened to "DEF".
During the Millenium years, its alleged that, at a GM factory in the UK, they discovered that the Kiosks outside/next to the factory gates, were making money, so promptly took them over!
No doubt GM got some of these silly ideas from “efficiency and productivity consultants” like McKinsey, after paying them millions of dollars in fees, aka far more than they could save from the recommendations 😂
I think you underestimate the enormous volume of printed material General Motors produced and just how much extra paper, toner and ink would have been needed if they hadn't shorten words, used single spaces after periods, and ruthlessly pursued the use of acronyms with their in-house style guide. 😂 Just owner's manuals alone have gotten ridiculous, for my 02 Honda it's over 360 pages. It's the thickness of a paperback novel. And it's a simple car from 20+ years ago.
A co-worker of mine in 1985 bought a high-level Oldsmobile 88. One of it "features" was a pull strap on the door panel in addition to the arm rest. Having never owned a car with pull straps he continued to use the depression in the arm rest to close the door. He was disturbed to find that after a month or so, it was obvious that the arm rests were loosening and coming off the door. He took it to the dealer and was told that there was a TSB to solve the problem. It turns out that the standard cars, without a pull strap, used a 1 1/2" screw to secure the armrest. However if your car had the pull straps, you were expected to use those to close the door and to save money those cars had the armrest mounted with a 1" screw! This was not enough to withstand the force most people used to pull the door closed with the armrest. Even the dealer had a hard time explaining why such a minor ridiculous money saving part was used.
...and they probably paid a systems analyst to come up with that, printed up reams of technical bulletins (typed with a few less characters,) paid for modifications to plant and operating procedure and wound up incurring a loss.
@saxongreen78 THIS. If you just do it right you never have to worry about TSBs, recalls, and all the PR and extra communication and energy involved with them.
I wonder how many of the low series cars were misbuilt with the shorter screw because the GM assembly plant couldn’t error proof this silly effort at cost reduction.
My Dad started his career at GM in 1984. Everything (and then some) that was said in this video is 100% true. He often brought up these kinds of things in conversations about the management structure of old GM, when they truly were a behemoth. He furnished our entire house when he got married with “incentive” merchandise he earned from all of the quality/cost savings suggestions he submitted. The days prior to the eventual divestiture of most non-core divisions and industries during the 1990s were really the last gasp of the “On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors” days. I don’t think people realize that today’s GM, although still a large company, is but a mere fraction of the archaic Corporation it once was.
I worked at the local Chevy dealership in 1989-90 in the parts department, and I remember that archaic Corporation lol. It seemed like everywhere you turned there, there was evidence of these motivational thrift programs that more or less all ended up just cluttering the place, and which no one really took to heart. I've wondered many times how tall the stack of paper that GM ran on in the pre-digital days would be. And I'll agree, at least with the dealerships, they do seem to be much leaner than back in those days.
When I worked at GM, they saved labor costs by 1) hiring foreigners for 20-30% less than paying Americans and 2) hiring contractors and furloughing them for 20-24 days a year, essentially paying the contractor 11 months for 12 months of commitment. I had no idea about the chisling costs by the letter. Hire a cheaper typist, I’ve seen that all day long.
The irony there is that a cheaper typist would have earned less pay because they couldn't type as many words per minute as a more costly one, and for other things that made them less efficient per dollar spent. Another great example of false economy.
Indeed, GM's corrupt labor practices are one of many bitter fruits of Milton Friedman and his hell spawn, Thatcherism which, BTW, metastasized into Reaganomics. What is the core of Reaganomics? The malevolent idea that the shareholders are the only reason for an enterprise to exist and they must be the first priority. Employees and vendors are fungible. The evil in that thinking is beyond the scope of this brief comment.
Our elite and ruling classes don't understand (don't want to) that, if you want a 1st world economy, you must have 1st world working and middle classes WITH the pay of a 1st world economy. A simulacrum 1st world economy can be temporarily faked if lower pay is supplemented with cheap credit (debt). That is not sustainable and can only lead to defacto slavery.
But, where do all the profits gained from cheap labor go to? The Top 1%, the shareholders, and other forms of elite dead weight. Does anybody remember FDR's New Deal and why it worked in the 20th century? LABOR gets paid FIRST. Then, I'll add, company operations, then vendors, and then upper management. Lastly, the shareholders. Since when does holding a fractional ownership in the company justify being paid first? Only in the perverse minds of Milton Friedman and his gullible dupes who believe in neoliberal economics.
I've had that done to me years ago as well, it was because then they could say I wasn't full time employee and didnt have to offer benefits if they laid me off for a week or two every year and then re-hired me.
Yes I do remember this. I'm currently retired from General Motors after 45 years of service. The words gage and gauge and employe still trips me up.
It's interesting about working over 35 years..Old guys use to tell me when I started that there are only two reasons that a guy would want to work over 35 years at General Motors....The first was they didn't want to be home with their wives and the second was their wives wouldn't let them quit...lol
As a GM employee who started in 1971.I always wondered what the "employe" thing was..I knew it was wrong but I figured it was just "The Mark of Excellence" being stylish..Thanks for pointing that out..
Dictionary publishing companies used to place a 'fake' word ever so often in their pages to deter another publisher from directly copying their work. Don't know if that still happens or not.
@Colorado_Native : Map makers back in the day used to do basically the same thing. They used to add things to their map version for copyright protection like Islands that really didn't exist, they made-up town and city names and sometimes put volcanos or rivers in an area where none actually existed.
@@rogergoodman8665 Never heard of that. Thanks for the (syzygy) reply. Copyrighted reply, Do not reuse under penalty of law.
Why not use "staff"? Or "staf". LOL
I wonder how many people typed "gauges" then thought "Oops, no, that's not right. I don't want to get in trouble." Then got out the White-Out, covered up "uges", waited for it to dry, backed up the platen, typed "ges", and continued on? And how much did that cost?!?!?! 😁 A perfect example of "Penny wise but pound foolish"!
Mom always said swatting at knats while swallowing camels as a reference to this kind of nonsense!
Yea plus they needed someone to spend a bunch of time dreaming this stuff up and discussing it and then putting out a style guide which had to be approved and updated and printed and distributed to everybody and then used as a reference whenever anyone created any internal documents... definitely cost them money in the long run.
I'd say the strangest thing GM ever did was to put out the exact same car across all of their brands and think the public would buy it that they were worth different amounts of money.
the theory I heard was they did to crowd out other brands dealerships given that most cities don't have that many retail lot zoned for dealerships if you had say Chevy a Saturn dealer maybe a Buick dealer in your town there was less retail space for Nissan or Toyota for example
It works sometimes. Look at how many Cutlasses they sold. Or J-bodies. Still works today. Porsche, Bentley, Audi, Lamborghini; they're all just Volkswagens.
I think those of the Greatest Generation had a soft spot in their hearts for their favorite GM makes of automobile, even though the real differences between them gradually disappeared. Who would buy a luxury Buick in the early 70s, who wouldn’t also be impressed with a luxury Oldsmobile? The interiors were both luxurious, engines were identical in size if not in design, options were unlimited and nearly identical in both.
Fast forward to the 1990s-2000 and on, the business model for GM started showing major cracks in its foundation. One make was now virtually the same as the other. So you could buy based on price, or buy from your favorite dealer. Succeeding generations are not tied to brand at all, if they even drive. They just want a “car” that moves them from point A to point B with as little problem as possible, and with as little maintenance as possible. The brand mystique is gone. Just give them a “car.” Kind of sad.
Olds and buick were much nicer than Chevy and pontiac up to the 90s A body days
@@johnlandacre767 You actually made GM’s (at the time) point. If you were looking at a Buick but equally impressed by an Oldsmobile, there is less chance you are going to look at a Mercury, Lincoln or Chrysler. If GM gave you four options in the higher end range (Buick/Olds/Pontiac/Cadillac) there was a stronger chance you would buy a car from GM. It DID work for a long time. There was a period when GM held over 50% of the car market by itself (52% if I remember correctly).
Crazy that they remove the U from gauge but leave “trip monitor” and “diagnostic” spelled out completely. Could have easily went with TRIP MON and DIAG.
That "cost saving" measure probably cost them more in the long run, sort of like all the business GM lost when they rushed Vega into production or when their mid size sedans in the late 70s/early 80s had stationary rear windows.
I'm amazed that they kept the fixed rear windows all through the life cycle of the G-body sedans. The Chrysler's K-cars had them for 1 or 2 years, after which they got roll-down windows. Tilting rear windows would not have been so bad if they opened at both the front and rear (there are several ways to do that), but the way both GM and Chrysler implemented them made them useless if the front windows were closed.
But if they cut the stationery into smaller pieces...
@@StringerNews1 It took me a minute to get what your comment meant...but I get it now!
STATIONARY rear windows.
@@61rampy65 yes, the old buckslip! 😆
Seems more like macromanagement because of some executives "brilliant idea"
Brought to you by a quintessential "think tank."
Employe-absolutely true at all the divisions I worked at, Cadillac, Buick, Chevy, GMC Truck, and Milford Proving Ground (not Grounds-didn’t need the extra “s”-saved valuable mainframe space). 😂😂
GM’s practice of changing universally accepted spellings has an undertone of 1984 about it, a corporation so large and powerful that it institutes grammatical changes in communication between its workers. Weird.
Given the amount of executives in GM, who MUST make 200% more than a factory worker or engineer etc. Of course they need to cut costs everywhere else...
If this was their thought process, why didn't they use GM instead of spelling General Motors in those documents????
It all makes sense now! No one at GM bothered to fully read those reports past the "Buckslips"!
EXACTLY what I was thinking while I watched the video!!
The biggest waste was the insane work rules in the uaw contract back then that gm agreed to.
Kind of ironic how about the time GM started focusing on such "micro" issues to save money, time and mainframe space, their "macro" business was going down the toilet and they were producing uninspired garbage that they couldn't get right out of the gate and only in the third or fourth model year did they finally get things right only to ultimately cancel the car because nobody was buying it by the time they got it sorted. Talk about taking your eyes off the ball! Perhaps if they had just focused all of that energy on building cars and doing it right things may have turned out differently for them in those doldrum years.
Sounds to me as if GM executives had too much time on their hands.
The domestic big 3’s bloated structures throughout the organizations left over from their dominant market share in the 50’s and 60’s crippled them in the 70’s when the dynamics of the industry changed so dramatically. To this day they are struggling to compete against lower cost producers that could allocate more $ towards the product the consumers receives.
Bean-counter mentality dogs GM to this day.
Indeed. During the malaise era, Japan Inc. was eating Detroit's lunch, not because Kanji characters used less computer RAM (they didn't), but because Japanese workers were working hard 5 days a week to _earn_ that lunch. Of course, Japan soon lost to China, who had slave labor with which to undercut prices...
Don't get me wrong, the build quality and craftsmanship of US cars in the 70s, 80s, 90s were absolutely tragic, but I would not call them uninspired. I would even call some of them very exciting and still looking great today.
I worked in "parts" at a dealer & shops (body & repair) got 45-50% off MSRP, & we still made money. The manufacturer did not make less, we (dealer) paid the same for all parts.
In short, the dealer is who screws you when paying them $15 for a wiper blade insert!
I can't wait for your presentation on why Ford Motor Company deleted all of their economy cars. If one wants an economy car, or even a middle of the road car, it won't be a Ford. Thank you for your premium presentations.
Zero to negative market growth in cars and margins are nil to negative as well. So those lines have been abandoned/left to the low cost Asian manufacturers (and even they seem to be giving up on them - young buyers just don’t desire them and older buyer are literally dying out.
@@gordtulkYes, large pick-up trucks seem to be all the rage. However, I think it comes down to availability. I own several collector vehicles and I would like an AMERICAN made daily driver. Thank you,
@@tedlym.3390 that segment has been replaced by small SUVs made by pretty much every manufacturer
@@gordtulk Part of that shift has been fueled by extraordinarily low financing costs over the past 15 years. From what I've heard, as interest rates have risen recently, there has been a slow shift back to cheaper vehicles.
@@pcno2832 Chevrolet Trax is very lost cost.
5-10% return is pretty good Adam. I work for an airline, though my airline competes in the freight and logistics industry. Most airlines work in the Travel and Leisure industry, and if you examine the financials over the last 40 years you will find the astounding fact that passenger airlines have historically operated on a 2% margin!
Airlines work due to cash flow; Lots of cash coming in and lots of it going out due to enormous expenses and a fast pace that allows shenanigans to take place. This fact attracts "shysters" like Frank Lorenzo and Carl Icahn, both of whom have RUINED airlines.
I fly cargo as a result. I wrote a term paper about this in college....
Great video!
It was all good in the DEN / Stapleton 'hood at Frontier until Lorenzo.
Interesting. Do you think Warren Buffett has been good or bad for rail?
didn't know ichon was in aviation. He killed many good brands in the auto industry also. Dropped wages to 1990s levels, cut staffing, then locations went out of business as all good workers left.
I worked at Willow Run Hydra-matic in the late 80's. I definitely remember "employe". There were a few others too but can't think of them right now. If my memory serves me, they always spelled it "colour" instead of "color" which goes against the thought process presented here. Overall, it seemed to me that GM would spend 100 grand to save a dime. I thought it was a very strange and inefficient culture.
Color vs Colour may have just been because GM is a US-based company. Color without the u is the correct spelling in US-English. It's the same with honor, favor, humor, and many other words that normally end in -our.
@@squirrel8296of course you’re correct, but the original comment it’s flipped. GM was oddly using the non American spelling
@@squirrel8296We know that. GM was using British English. As an American company in the United states. You haven't provided any enlightenment as to why.
@@squirrel8296give a pedant the opportunity to be a pandantic know-it-all and the context immediately goes whoosh right over their head! 😂
Maybe they thought "colour" would make them sound more like a fancy European import?
Instead of wasting time and effort on stupid things like this, GM should have put more time and effort into building better cars!
Like The Taurus, Escort, Tempo...😶🧂
That would have cost more money!
Or do what the Japanese did and simplify options and improve quality to have the lower warranty costs.
Now, that's just crazy talk.
Yes, the Taurus was a fine example of a US automaker turning things around with a new emphasis on quality and styling, as well as economy. The Taurus SHO brought back the concept of a sedan that could get out of its own way. That was the start of a new era of American cars that were stylish and performed well.
I worked for GM in 1988. Employe was used and of course was on most of the documents given to new-hires. At the time I thought it must have come from a misspelling on a previous CEO's memo that nobody had the balls to correct. But hey, it saved a byte on every superfluous document stored on their EDS computers.
I remember a lot of these "mispelled" words in Mt days working with the big three. Another way of cost saving that came about the same time was the use of acronyms. When I moved into the aerospace field, I noticed this was very relevant. With Boeing, it seems that every time more than 3 words (sometimes 2 words) are used together more than once, it becomes an acronym from then on. It is hard to keep track of them all!
GM is still penny pinching which is why their CEO, Mary Barra, only makes about $29 million annually..
Poor Mary!
No corporate officer is worth more than one million dollars, no stock options either. Bonuses should be applied to all employees, and if no profit, no bonus. This is sensible as everyone is replaceable unless you are the majority owner of the company. This thinking will make more companies much more productive and profitable
Ah, I remember the 'Check Gages' warning in my 94 Grand Am. With that dash having full instrumentation, it took a minute to find which 'gage' was displaying a problem. It also didn't help that the warning light was buried to the left of the steering column where it was obscured. They probably did that to save money rather display an actual warning for the corresponding gauge.
Speaking of GMs vocabulary, they for some reason loved to used the word 'cassette' for things that did not mean audio equipment.
This is due to "cassette" being defined as a non-audio noun.
Noun - cassette - define as:
A small flat case containing magnetic tape on two reels, used to record and play back audio and video material.
Any similar small cartridge, such as for a computer disk or cassette air conditioner
(photography) A lightproof container for photographic film.
(genetics) A modular DNA sequence encoding one or more genes for a single biochemical function.
(cycling) A set of sprockets mounted onto a splined shaft on the free hub.
A saggar (ceramic container used in a kiln)
They could’ve been swimming in surplus cash if they had spelled it “caset”, particularly in the Corvet, Chevet, and Caprees cars.
@@konradhittner4668 Don’t you mean “Capres?” That would save one “E.”😂😂
@uswcboy Don't forget the HP LaserJet error message "PC Load Letter". PC standing for: Paper Cassette.
Just think how much they could have saved by not employing people to come up with this and update the style manuals
Or eliminate the style manual altogether.
This is true….I worked writing GM Service Manuals at the time. The style guide for service implied that in a 500 page manual the shortened words would save “several pages” off the finished product and thus lower printing costs.
Do you recall any other shortened words?
I’d have to find my old SIPS guide, I know there were a few others. They pushed for Acronyms ruthlessly. O2 not oxygen sensor. TCC not Torque Convertor Clutch. Also double spaces after a period were eliminated. I think there was a period of time where everything was “thru” not “through” because I remember having to change them all back. When the manuals went to multiple volumes for one vehicle thats when all shortening demands came.
"Delivering great products to customers". That's hysterical, when we're talking about General Motors
GM wasn’t the only one with alternate spelling. My 1956 Packards have “Liter” on the cigar lighter bezel on the dash, but “Lights” on the light switch. They also spelled “distributers” for over fifty years for the folks who handled sales between the dealers and the factory.
I still spell employe with one e. This goes way back to the 1920's when GM hired "efficiency experts" that were all the rage at that time. These guys did all sorts of time and motion studies and and tried to find ways to eliminate unnecessary steps.
Another favorite piece Adam. The channel keeps getting better. Always laughed when I reviewed the GM Writing Style Guide. Had forgotten it.
The worst mistake to save costs was the cheapo interior binge GM went on for MY 1995. They cheaped out on interiors to the extreme accross their entire lineup. GM why are you cutting corners where its painfully visable? Gez you sat inside any chevy back then and thought no thanks Ill get ANY OTHER CAR
The 97 Buick Riviera used a plastic molded clip to hold down the center armrest cover, a part subject to abuse by driver's arms. The clip would break, and you could repair it only by buying a completely new leather armrest cover, a $400. part. I machined my own replacement clip out of 1/4" black acrylic, very solid, hasn't broken yet. The original part should have been metal, and it would have helped to convey an impression of quality, and not break.
I totaly agre that it would save them money cuting leters out from memos and dashbord letering !
That's why Cadillac was the luxury division. Just think of all those wasted L's through the years. Extravagance, I tells ya!
GM: Take letters out of words, save money.
Honda: Make connecting rods more consistent, reducing excess weight by reducing the extra tab on the top, reduce weight, costs, make engine more responsive
I have read GM CEO Roger Smith had some horrible ideas like combining divisions into little cars; C-P-C (Chevy Pontiac Canada) & big cars; B-O-C (Buick Olds Cadillac), but it really all comes down to a question asked in the ‘70s to the CEOs of Toyota & GM “is your company out to build the best car in the world or the one that make the most money?” -we all know the answer.
Isn’t the obvious answer to this question, “We’re out to build the best car in the world, which will ultimately make us the most money?”
I remember this at GM. I worked at GM Truck Engineering in Pontiac from 1988 to 1995. Other cost savings measures that GM introduced in the early 90s was they forced all salaried employe(e)s to take one (or maybe it was two) weeks of vacation in the summer all at the same time. The idea was that the company would save money in being able to shut down certain parts of operations, offices, all at once to save on operating costs. The other cost saver in the early 90s was that GM delayed issuing one pay check by 2 weeks for all salaried employe(e)s and then combined the payment with the next paycheck. They did this only once when I was there. I don't recall the actual reason for this action but I recall it was to help keep the company from falling deeper into the "red" financially.
GM, the King of cost cutting, pinching pennies, and cutting corners. Over the years I've come to adopt a new term with how cheap things are and feel. Cheap, and GM cheap. As a person who works with a Tier 1 supplier for GM, I can vouch for their cheapness.
And they're allegedly in the crapper again according to rumors that I'm hearing.
The big 3 are already the big 2 and a half after Chrysler needed to link up with Fiat after the Great Recession. Only a matter of time until further consolidation/mergers are required. The legacy weight of their higher cost structures vs. competitors is unavoidable.
Mary puts the globalist agenda at the top of the list!
Nothing smelled quite like the interior of a freshly minted (luxury) Statesman Caprice...except, perhaps, a Daewoo Lanos!
@@nathanexplosion5478The Big Three are General Motors, Ford and Toyota. Including Stellantis it's the big four.
I'm concerned that EVs are going to bankrupt the American Auto industry.
But ev are not able to easily last 20 years or 300k miles like most late 70s on up cars can. So every 10 years you need a new car and old one must be scrapped
The GM memo shown could have kept the spelling "employee", and be rewritten to eliminate words, while still conveying the intention of the memo.
This is 100% true! I did not work at GM but the company I worked for brought in an Innovation and Efficiency Exec from GM.
He took the “employee” saving to a new level - first, let’s shorten it to FTE. Ok, I sort of get it.
Then, after a trip to Japan to learn about Kaizen methods, he adjusted the style guidelines that “employees” would be referred to as “EE”.
Hey, 33% improvement on one short form likely saved the company billions.
Nah, ended up with countless discussions about “remind me what is EE is again? Did we hire Elwood Engel?” .
Classic stuff.
Gotta love that Elwood Engel mix up
Are you surprised that GM shorted their employes?
It's just we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be greeaat.
We'll get you another copy of the memo.
😅😅😅😅😅
I’m surprised they didn’t continue with all words with double letters like Wel for Well, Comite for Committee, etc. Maybe that would’ve been too much like Newspeak from Orwell’s 1984.
And I thought it was chintzy when VW wired both dashboard turn signal indicators together instead of connecting the left and right ones to their respective lights. The alternate spellings might have saved something significant when space was limited on displays and in the areas around buttons and knobs, but I can't imagine them ever paying off in reduced office costs.
All European cars were like that until fairly recently. Even most European Ford products had a single indicator light on the dashboard.
There’s a stick that pokes from the steering Column that literally indicates which side is on
@@fastinradfordable Ralph Nader does not approve of any sticks protruding from the steering column. Someone could lose an eye!
@@fastinradfordable😂😂😂
Well GM has always been known to do stupid things. Having a rule not allowing anything over 400 ci in the small cars during the muscle car race. Interesting to see how far they took their terrible decision making.
...it was probably so they could scrape a few pennies by not upgrading the chassis, brakes, steering or suspension in those models.
Enlightening, thanks for the info. My mom always said swatting at knats while swallowing camels for this kind of nonsense!!!! Dad’s 86 Monte Carlo always requires a solid pull to get the door to shut right and it is low mileage garage kept. I remember the 76 Monte Carlo he had before used plastic for the glove box door hinge. We hardly ever opened it for fear it would be the last time before it fell off. His 78 K10 was so cheap it didn’t have a dome light just a single light under the dash that only came on with the driver’s door. Now that savings! That said we liked GM and had good service from them. Very good styling for the most part but you just wonder “what were they thinking?”
The K 10 must have been a Custom Deluxe...
@@dougkabler3032 I think it was but it had the upper and lower chrome molding that the Cheyenne had.
Charles, that could be the case. My uncle had a C 10 Custom Deluxe with two tone paint that had the chrome trim.
@@dougkabler3032 Yes two tone would make sense but dad’s truck was solid maroon. The interior was kind of medium red and the door panels were contoured with no trim at all and they got scaly during the 10 years we had it even though it was kept under a deck on their house. It was a 350 automatic full time 4wheel drive and 80 mph was about it.
Worked for GM Legal/Xerox at their headquarters and I came across a lot of documents with employee missing the e....and this was in the 2000's...
As someone who started with GM in the mid 80's that is still how I spell it.
It has always bugged me how GM spelled 'gauges' even when there was room in the dashboard for the whole word.
Thank you for clearing up this for me.
I always said: "gaggees" whenever I saw that word.
Apparently, nobody read the first one about quality because they were so far from the best throughout most of those years, they could not see 1st place with binoculars.
Ha! I overworked one of those paper cutters, nearly every night working for Warner Bros in 2002! I eventually started taking my huge stacks of mini-sides, call sheets, etc., down to the carpentry shop and using their band saw.
The trunk light in my Olds Intrigue was held in by scotch tape. I asked the dealer if this was a mistakeand and he said no. I then asked for a part number for the scotch tape.
My Dad was a GM engineer for 45yrs Columbus Ohio. I used to ask about things I thought would be productive improvements and he would always say if it cost 25cents more to build a car they wouldn’t consider it.
This made me laugh. I started working at the GM Tech Center in 1994 and saw this first hand. I recall my first day pulling into the parking lot and saw a sign that said “Employe Parking” and was absolutely confused.
I guess internally it must have been spelled "Cadilac Fletwod Brom"
Talk about cost cutting and saving money.. I did not know it was that deep in GM. Just wow.... I sat and thought about this. Thank you Adam .
When I was working on my MBA way back we took a course on cost savings. I have forgotten the exact numbers,, but the example was if GM could save one cent on each valve stem that would be five cents per vehicle. If they sold 4,000,000 vehicles that would be a savings of $200,000 per year. Not too bad really.
Yeah, that's why GM gave all the fullsizers in the sixties undersized tires and brakes, because some bean counter figured it would save them millions.
Ah, this was before some bright spark in Accounting realized that a can of Fix-a-Flat costs virtually nothing compared to the price of a donut spare and got them down to _four_ valve stems per car. :)
But in reality wouldn't that mean they could sell the car two cents cheaper?
@@dj33036 Using My Cousin Vinny's voice, "Let's see, we could sell the car for two cents less, or we can pocket the five cents. Boy, that's a tough one. We're going for the extra profit. The dealers can mark it down if they want to."
But cutting costs is not equivalent to increasing revenue. The cuts that make a product cheaper to make, make it cheaper period. And a cheaper product means a smaller profit margin. If the seller tries to hide the cost-cutting from the consumer, that might work a time or two, but it invites competition from others who either pass more of the savings along to the customer, or who don't cut costs and claim to have a better product for it. And when the consumer is weary of constant quality cuts, that can be a strong incentive.
to quote a 1985 GM ad, this video is proof positive that "Nobody sweats the details like GM"
You forgot another cost saving derived from the "Alternate" word spelling benefit. Typewriter ribbons! Over a number of years the reduction in the size of words by a letter (or two) could reduce the number of ribbons utilized. Further, the reduction of the number of ribbons used would also allow for an additional cost savings as the typist would then spend less TIME in changing these additional ribbons.
As a teen I would routinely toss what I felt were "unnecessary" fasteners when reassembling a project. Then it kit me - if the manufacturer could get away without it they would!
My Mother worked for GM at the Trim Plant here in Windsor Ont. Some the stuff they implemented at that place was idiotic, so i believe everything you said in this video 😊
Decades ago I noticed GM's spellings for gages in owners' manuals and service manuals. I looked it up and sure enough it was an acceptable alternate spelling, but I still don't see others using them.
This reminds me of a Quotable Quote I saw in a Readers Digest. "Sometimes management decisions made by a majority simply reflect that all of the educated idiots came to work that day."
Re: the buckslip. Through a professional acquaintance, I was introduced to an ad executive at Proctor & Gamble in the early '80s. I remember him telling me that part of the P&G business culture required that memos could not be more than a page long (in fact, there might've been a word count or paragraph count that would assure a memo would end up shorter than one page) and as part of your memo's contents, you would provide references to additional documentation or reporting that was available, should the recipient want to know more.
Makes perfect sense to be concise, to reduce the size of a memo to a single page, therefore eliminating the need for duplicating and collating copies and having to staple the pages together.
It only says to me the management don't give a shit about the content because they don't read any of the memos, what they want is an "Classics Illustrated" version of the memo sent to them business card size.
Be concise. Confine the memo to a single page. (Just think of the cost savings to be had by teaching employes 🤨how to write clearly & persuasively.)
@@ingvarhallstrom2306it's a memo not a essay. People (like you) who wish to write multi-page memos need to FOCUS!
@@ingvarhallstrom2306Be concise and get to the point. Nothing more. Not wasting paper, toner and people's time was the point of such policies.
I’m betting that whatever McKinsey-esque analysis went into deducing some operational efficiency benefit leading to alternate spellings probably neutralized desired cost benefit 😀
I don't really remember ever noticing any creative spellings from GM, but I do remember in the early-to-mid '80s when our neighbors got a new Century, and they were dumbfounded by the fuel gauge, which said "Empty - 1/4 - 2/4 - 3/4 - Full." They wanted to know why it didn't say 1/2 instead of 2/4!😆 I think I made some comment about common denominators... We had an '82 Skylark and an '83 LeSabre at the time, and I'm pretty sure the Skylark was that way.
Wow, had no idea the Industry in the U.S. was sooo competitive in the 70's, 80's & 90's, that they wud cost-save on the things U mentioned, Adam😲🤲
I wonder just how much they actually saved with these measures? Some cost analysis must have been done down the line.
Having worked 40 years in the aviation power plant design/manufacturing business I recall folks who came in from the auto industry were amazed that our profit margins were rarely less than 10% and more typically 15-25% on most products lines.
Two totally different manufacturing sectors. With completely different requirements.
It’s just seems like the juice isn’t worth the squeezing 🤷🏽♂️great content 💯
Perfect examples that demonstrate "penny wise, pound foolish". I never knew these misspellings were intentional! 😂
Just a few off-topic comments about your GM Building thumbnail photo: In early 1964, I went into the first-floor showroom, walked over to a red GTO, got in, and pronounced that the time of the youth market had arrived. A year later, late one night, right outside that same showroom, I first put my foot into the throttle of a 1965 Tri-power GTO belonging to a friend of mine. The proximity of the incidents was not lost on me. Then, in October 1968, just as the Tigers won the World Series, I was driving by the building when suddenly the air was filled with the trash dumped from a hundred waste baskets as the GM employees expressed their joy. There was a time when Detroit was good.
"Employe" was less about the keystroke time savings and more about the toner savings. Remember: before email, every written communication had to be printed and distributed. GM had (has?) a suggestion program that will pay employes (see?) for the cost savings of their suggestion up to a maximum amount (I forget what % and max). When I started there I asked about the "employe" spelling and was told it was from the suggestion program and the individual received a maximum award.
It was started at GM in the 1920's. No printers back then, just entire floors of the old GM building staffed by hundreds of clerks and secretaries, each with a typewriter.
You know I'm beginning to understand why they went bankrupt. Save money by not typing characters, cutting the corner off papers, but the CEO memo comes out on an offset-print parchment?
I'm a dairy manager in a high volume store
We work on 1cent per dollar
Although people have to shop weekly and if you want to live you have to eat still 1 cent is one cent
One accident on that paper cutter nullifies the savings on the buck slip big companies love to watch pennies and waste dollars
I stated GM in 1986, yup one 'e' at the end of employee. Also, learned so many buzz terms like, lock-step & deep-dive etc. Plus, I found I was unsubscribed from your channel? Anyone else? Yes, I subscribed again.
THANK YOU! I've been telling that 'employe' story for years and nobody believed me or thought I was strange (lol). I first learned of this in college as my major was Industrial Management in Oshawa. The professor had told us it was used mostly on employee pay stubs when the clerks (and later printers) typed the word 'employe'. It was thought to not only save person hours time, but also ink costs. That was our professors story of this..
GM’s example of Orwellian newspeak.
I went to work for GM in 1990, and having come from one of the big national accounting firms, it was quite the culture shock to discover that they spelled employee with only one e on the end. It was about the time when we all got computers on our desks using Microsoft Word for DOS that GM came to its senses and started spelling words correctly. Spellcheck was an issue. Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I think they actually reprogrammed spellcheck! (or tried to) I wasted more time having to go back and change "employee" to "employe".
Very interesting facts, thank you. However... it is for me now easy to understand why they lost the market and are no longer top dog... A professor once said to me: the best way to reduce costs is to close the company. Costs are obviously 0 then. Of course he made this statement to make a point. Any company shall always focus on improving products, margin and marketshare. Cost cutting, and I have been there many times, in my experience always is the beginning of the end...
One of my favorite features of your channel is all the inside info and stories that you bring. Some will mock some of these efforts, and some probably don't make sense but people need to realize that gm was a mammoth organization and every bit of process improvement, etc could mean millions more profit out of the same amount of sales
5 to 10% profit is normal for most established businesses. Walmart, Exxon Mobile etc work on the same margins
They should have substituted “crap” for “quality”, saving 3 letters and also explains the true reality to the “employe”
The opening shot of the old GM building shows what was a classic particularly compared to the international style of the RenCen tower. Unfortunate that they abandoned the fine architecture of the original.
Seems more likely that "gages" was not a cost cutter when you consider they could have used "diags" (or "data" or "test" or "perf") instead of "diagnostic".
"we are going to need the new cover sheets on the TPS reports, mkay. I'll make sure you get another copy of the memo, mkay"
Yeah, I have a suspicion that that particular one was GM trying to increase its engineering cred, since "gage" is how engineers usually spell it.
Thanks, learned something new today.
Left GM 3 years ago and you could still find the "employe" spelling left overs from time to time. I remember finding an old sign at Milford and someone had to explained to me the whole cost saving thing from back in the day.
Great humorous video Adam. The buc sheet fiasco was priceless.
And one X car recall blew all the savings to smithereens. Hmm.
Shortening "gauges" to "gages" did actually have a genuine cost saving in that when it was printed for use in manuals, brochures or even in the car it self, it would have saved a couple of cents per unit.
By that I mean, by omitting the U, to print the decal for the trip computer would cost 1cent LESS than if they printed the U. Multiply that over a few million cars and that's actually a real saving, especially when you look at other methods to save cost. Even when printing the manuals and brochures, alot of the time it's priced per character. You omit a character here and there and suddenly you're looking at a print job that could be a dollar cheaper per unit. Multiply that doller saving over how many brochures or manuals are printed and again, that's a real saving. It's also why alot of the time the brochures would be effectively reused for different model years with abit of airbrush editing on the photos, it's cheaper to airbrush than to organise a formal photoshoot.
And the brochures theselves can be signs of cost savings. I've got a 1983 and a 1985 Cadillac brochure in my collection, the 1983 has a lovely heavy linen card with diebossed emblem and script cover with nice heavy, full colour pages. The 1985 is still full colour and high end but compared to the 1983 it's cover is just heavier card than the pages and the pages themselves are lighter than the 1983 brochure, something I only really noticed after working in the printing industry. As a matter of interest, the print company I worked for did a price comparison with the 2 brocures based on our current pricing at the time and the 1983 brochure would have been 50% more expensive to produce than the 1985 brochure.
The problem there is that the number of cars with that fancy CRT display was closer to hundreds than millions. And they don't use decals; the button markings are printed on by a mcahine that has a die that strikes a ribbon that runs the entire width of the bezel. For every new bezel, the ribbon advances the full width. You could have "War and Peace" written on the bezel, and the cost would be the same.
GM and Toyota would leave a vehicle's engine 1/2 quart low on oil from the factory to save money. Cha Ching!
Hilarious about words. Never knew. Thanks Adam!
This is the most GM way of saving money I've ever heard of. So convoluted.
Great vid!! 👍👍
Nothing really to do with this video, but there’s a video on UA-cam showing how GM figured they could save money by transporting the VEGA vertically in special rail cars. It actually wound up costing them MORE to ship them that way.
We used "IOC" Inter office Communication
GM - Divisions.
You can bet there was no cost cutting on the executives million dollar salaries. If they were that desperate to save a penny it makes you wonder how many corners were cut making the cars.
They would saved a lot of money if they didn't hire the person who came up the idea of the spelling 😂😂
It seems like the climate controls were targeted heavily for shorter words. Note how they used "HI" and "LO" for the speeds, instead of the full "HIGH" and "LOW" words. There were also some cases where the dial read "DE-ICE", but that was shortened to "DEF".
During the Millenium years, its alleged that, at a GM factory in the UK, they discovered that the Kiosks outside/next to the factory gates, were making money, so promptly took them over!
My favorite cost saving measure that you have spoken about was the light on the dashboard of the Chrysler that lit a switch.
No doubt GM got some of these silly ideas from “efficiency and productivity consultants” like McKinsey, after paying them millions of dollars in fees, aka far more than they could save from the recommendations 😂
I think you underestimate the enormous volume of printed material General Motors produced and just how much extra paper, toner and ink would have been needed if they hadn't shorten words, used single spaces after periods, and ruthlessly pursued the use of acronyms with their in-house style guide. 😂
Just owner's manuals alone have gotten ridiculous, for my 02 Honda it's over 360 pages. It's the thickness of a paperback novel. And it's a simple car from 20+ years ago.
Not only is it the thickness of a paperback novel but it's dimensions, its width and height are greater than one too! wth 😂
Can’t be economical flying in Allante bodies in 747s to the states for final assembly.