News From the Auto Industry

Taking General Motors to the next level of creating compelling cars and trucks is the charge of Ed Welburn, GM’s new vice president of design. The 53-year-old Welburn is the sixth person in GM’s 95-year history to hold the position–and the first African American. Welburn assumed the post after outgoing design chief Wayne Cherry resigned.

The new policy gives GM leverage in the event a supplier’s performance wanes. “We still have opportunities when we award a product in year one and start production in year four. Sometimes, they (suppliers) become uncompetitive (during that time).”

“The choice of Ed is interesting for obvious reasons,” says Brett Smith, a senior industry analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Detroit. “He certainly has done a fantastic job of working through the corporate system, which at GM can sometimes be a difficult thing to do.”

“We didn’t do a good job communicating what the change was and what the impact was,” Andersson tells Ward’s. “So I had a conference call with all the top 200 suppliers to explain what it was.”

GM can inform the supplier it has 30 days to become competitive, likely through price cuts, or face de-sourcing. The previous 18 months suppliers had to respond on matters of price was deemed excessive.

That system has often been criticized for putting constraints on the creative process. “Hopefully this will be an opportunity for [Welburn] to go back in time when design was king at GM and to let the people who are good at it do it and not let the bean counters and engineers tell them how to design,” adds Smith.