Press Release
Production and quality
- Excellent Reputation for Quality
Together with the Zafira and Astra Classic, the new Astra sedan is the third model currently being produced in Gliwice. General Motor’s Gliwice plant, which started production in 1998, has earned an excellent reputation for quality, and is considered a model for new GM manufacturing plants in the world. GM Poland Managing Director Romuald Rytwi?ski sees the production of the new Astra sedan in Gliwice as a confirmation of the plant’s outstanding quality and workmanship: “As one of the most popular models in the Opel range in Eastern and Central Europe, we are proud to produce the new Astra sedan here in Gliwice, and we are committed to the high levels of quality we expect from our employees and our vehicles.”
Like all other GM plants, the Gliwice plant follows General Motors’ Global Manufacturing System (GM GMS). The system is based on five key concepts: Built-in-Quality, Standardization, Continuous Improvement, Short Lead Time and People Involvement, including shared responsibility for quality management.
The GM Global Manufacturing System is an important building block of an integrated strategy to develop products that excite customers in markets around the world. GM is bringing together the best, most competitive manufacturing practices from around the world and leveraging what it has learned as it moves to a common global manufacturing system for all of its new plants and existing facilities. When implemented, the GMS principles maximize performance in the areas of people systems, safety, quality, customer responsiveness and cost.
At the heart of the system is the operator in the plant - the person who builds the vehicles. Plants and processes are designed around providing support for the operators and teams on the plant floor, so they can efficiently build great vehicles that provide customers with top quality, value and responsiveness.
In accordance with the GM Global Manufacturing System, every employee on the production line in Gliwice has the obligation to pull the ANDON cord if a problem occurs. The Quality and Material ANDON system consists of two similar but separate subsystems. The Quality ANDON subsystem enables employees to request help when a product or process quality problem is identified. The action of pulling a cord sends a signal back to the operator interface, illuminating a section of a large display called an ANDON board that indicates where the problem exists along the production line. It also sounds an audio alert. The Quality ANDON subsystem supports the synchronous manufacturing principles of built-in-quality utilizing in-station repair rather than final process repair.
The Material ANDON subsystem allows each production area to automatically or manually request material before inventory is completely consumed. Employees manually request more material by pressing a button. The manual or automatic request sends a signal back to the Material ANDON System, which displays the request in the material storage area. ‘Driverless carriages’ then deliver the requested material to the location, again supporting the synchronous manufacturing principles of just-in-time delivery.
Both the Quality and Material ANDON systems feature built-in tracking and reporting capability that compiles the number of ANDON calls, the number of line stops, and the resulting downtime. Problems are detected and resolved quickly and inventory is minimized. The ANDON system avoids the high cost of idle equipment and people due to production problems and drastically reduces the opportunity for errors and necessity of rework.
“Respect good ideas and stable processes – but, particularly in terms of quality, control is always good,” says GM Poland Managing Director and Opel Poland Plant Director Romuald Rytwi?ski. In line with this, GM has European “Quality Calibration Auditors”, who arrive unannounced to look over the shoulders of the quality auditors in each individual plant. Should they identify deficiencies in a car deemed defect free by the internal quality audit, “things get uncomfortable”, says Rytwi?ski.
To view quality only in terms of production quality would certainly not be enough. “It is very clear to us that we can only make significant progress in the various aspects of quality when we also completely satisfy our customers regarding what we call perceptual quality and the entire image of the car,” says Romuald Rytwi?ski.
History of the GM Poland Plant at Gliwice
When it all started in Gliwice, it was a huge adventure. It began officially on October 2, 1996 when the traditional ground-breaking ceremony took place in the Upper Silesian soil. Within 22 months, a factory occupying a total site area of 70 hectares was constructed on the outskirts of the former mining town, breathing new life into the once heavy-industry dependant region.
The long-overdue structural change away from coal and steel was made possible by GM investments totaling more than 700 million euros. The capital was devoted to building a car factory from the ground up. Production of the Opel Astra started in 1998 and since February 2000, the plant has also been manufacturing the Agila microvan.
More than 3000 skilled employees work at the Gliwice plant. The 100,000 square meter facility is a model of state-of-the-art production, from its comprehensive quality control program to Gliwice’s noble tradition in industry. Excellent location and willingness to offer attractive conditions led to GM’s decision to build a manufacturing plant there in 1996. That decision has turned out to be a boon both for the company and for Silesia.
For GM Poland, the community is ideal. It is a region with a highly skilled labor force, a long industrial tradition and an excellent geographic location. The site is close to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary and Germany, which assures close co-operation with international suppliers.
The plant assembled 186,300 vehicles in 2006, more than 90 percent of which were produced for export. In 2003, 76,700 vehicles left the production lines in Gliwice. Since then, the plant’s output has increased by more than 240 percent. The Gliwice plant has also been the recipient of the coveted GM Chairman’s Honors award five years in a row.
Production in the GM Poland plant is carried out with consideration for the natural environment. Ecologically compatible solutions are applied, among others, in the paint shop, which was designed and built in accordance with strict environmental work safety standards of the European Union. Car bodies are covered with a layer of latest generation lead-free anti corrosion paint, and all primers and surfaces are water-based which means no emissions of organic solvent vapors that are harmful to the environment. The use of top-class painting robots and the modern sewage treatment plant make it possible to minimize the amount of waste.
At present, the Astra Sedan, Astra Classic and Zafira Opel models are produced in Gliwice, with GM Europe’s next generation of compact car to supplement this in the future. GM Poland alone accounts for about one percent of total Polish GDP. It is a major employer and, as the first major global company to take up residence in the region, it helped the province and the Silesia region as a whole to attract other foreign businesses.
Gliwice is also a major applied sciences hub for the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union, and home to many famous people, including Jerzy Buzek, former Prime Minister of Poland, Bayern Munich soccer player Lukas Podolski, Ernst Degner, Grand Prix motorcycle racer and designer and Oskar Troplowitz, pharmacist and founder of Nivea skin creams.
