Harmful particles in oil after engine break-in

General Discussion
21

I have long wished to see the books of these companies, whether automotive or other, which move production overseas to get lower labor costs. I worked for a large international corporation. They were constantly struggling to lower production costs, using office staff who made a lot more than the production workers did. Yet, they did not spend any time trying to reduce the total office costs which were much greater than production labor.

I once asked a management person why they worried so much about production labor and not about the much higher cost overhead personnel. Incredibly this moron told me that production labor costs added to the cost of the items sold, but the customers paid the overhead costs directly.

Ho ho ho ha ha ha hee hee hee.

Financial reporting formats were developed to make it easier for people to understand them. IT DIDN’T WORK, SHERLOCK!!!

These morons actually believe that because an item is reported in a different place from COGS (cost of goods sold) it somehow is different. Yet, in the end GM profit/loss = all revenue - all costs. Period.

Several years later, another management person told me the CEO told them production labor costs were too small a portion of total costs to be of major concern. He acted like he didn’t understand how that could be possible.

There were several overhead personnel for each production worker and they usually made much greater money. I do not relate to people who think that means only production labor is important.

And, looking at costs of US personnel being paid to work overseas with all costs and per diems, and translators, and the tremendous cost of sending management including executives quickly dwarfs total production costs. (A temp executive secretary once told me to send someone at VP level overseas cost around $100,000 A DAY.)

I could definitely be wrong; it wouldn’t be the first time. But, I suspect this moving work overseas is based on the same erroneous thinking that we saw in my company. Perhaps major stock holders who don’t get it force them to go for lower labor costs even if total costs go up

But my uncertainty is why I’d like to see their books.

22

The only way to manage costs in a company is to understand direct costs, variable costs, fixed overhead, variable overhead, costs of capital and exchange rates, and many other factors… not the least of which is taxes and surcharges. There’s a whole lot of detail that goes into analyzing and controlling costs… and in maintaining one’s market share… in the various markets worldwide. Perhaps that manager was trying to explain fixed overhead vs. variable overhead and oversimplified it. It simply ain’t simple.

And then one has to understand the difference between regulatory compliance overhead and recognize that even if it doesn’t directly contribute to the product, customer satisfaction, or motivation to purchase it’s still essential to the business.

But I can guarantee you that very few politicians have ever run a manufacturing company, and when they speak they’re generally talking out of their colorectal relief apertures. :smiley:
Unfortunately, that’s how they generally create legislation too.

In addition, I would argue that standardized financial reporting formats are not to make it easier for people to understand them, but rather for the government to oversee (and tax) the companies. That discussion could go on for days.

23

You’re never going to get all of the contaminants out of a running engine. The oil filter will stop most of it down to the 20 Microns or so range but everything else will continually be recycled.

24

There are many people who run small to large SUCCESSFUL companies who have no idea how business works. Their product/service sells itself. And they think they know what they’re doing but they actually haven’t a clue. Then when competition comes along and they have to compete they then fail. And again haven’t a clue what happened.

25

I know them! :lol:

26

I worked for a successful large company for many years and still saw tremendous waste. Each department optimized their own costs no matter how badly it impacted another department. As TSM said, upper management spewed oats that had already passed through the cattle, patting themselves on the back when they made a few tenths of a % improvement in a fixed area. If they only looked at the big picture, costs might go up in a few areas with a total overall drop in the entire process. You can only hope that the successful car companies look at the big picture (keeping the discussion related to cars)

27

@SteveCBT Modern management science studies Work Processes, and optimizes the entire value chain. Toyota started this in the 60s by learning from Edward Deming. The Toyota Production System is now a standard textbook. It then became Total Quality Management which optimizes the total value chain and integrates human, information, technical and material flows.

This is still a mystery to GM and Fiat.

A good example came from Ford in the 80s trying to reduce their accounts receivable steps from 12 to 9. At that time Ford owned part of Mazda, I believe. In any case, a couple of Ford guys vacationed in Japan and visited Mazda where over some sake they talked about accounts receivable. The Mazda guys said they were also trying to reduce the number of steps, but from 5 to 2!! This was a real eye opener for Ford, which had run a “silo” operation until then.

After implementing some drastic organization changes and streamlined work processing, Ford can now claim a “one step” accounts receivable process for their truck rear axles. These axles are pre-ordered on a Just In Time basis and are bar coded. As they are attached to a Ford truck the become Ford axles and trigger a payable, but also provide input to the delivery schedule.

This type of thinking used to be completely foreign to most large US companies, but has now become an acceptable goal to achieve.

Car companies used to be rigidly divided into 1) Styling/Marketing, 2) Engineering, 3) Production, 4) Accounting

The styling/marketing guys would dream up a new “design”, and accounting would tell them how much is should cost. At this stage no one had talked to engineering or manufacturing. The design would then be “thrown over the fence” to engineering, who would, after many compromises, throw it over the fence to manufacturing. Those poor guys in turn had to make many compromises to actually make the thing. The result was an unreliable car that was often hard to service since service was an afterthought.

The first US car company to integrate these functions was Ford with their 1986 Taurus which got those departments together and make the focus “design for assembly”, which produced a very profitable car, but still had a lot of bugs in it because it was a breakthrough design. It was gradually improved, but the serviceability always left a lot to be desired. The military DEMANDS SERVICEABILITY!

28

Right. This is Work Processes approach is known as “Value Stream Mapping”. It’s one of the many tools that the Japanese have used to kick our butts.

Your second-to-last paragraph emphasizes “Design For Manufacturing” practices, another of the many tools.

One of my favorites is a technique that analyzes the design to reduce the number of parts and processes necessary. Basically, it takes a product that has 2,000 parts and, by designing multfunctionality into the parts, reduces it to 1000 parts. That reduces by half procurement, inventory, assembly, and the potential for problems from the parts, late deliveries, and supplier issues. I cannot for the life of me recall the acronym used, but the technique is really fun to use and brilliant.

There are others. These are only a few basics.

29

@mountainbike Commonality is used by large manufacturers to reduce design, testing and manufacturing cost. Under the skin cars from the same manufacturer have many common parts, from engine to fittings to switches, etc. This also increases reliability while decreasing unit cost.

This approach to modularity is carried through to “platform design” where a basic platform configuration can generate a sedan, SUV, Crossover, minivan and sports car.

The Camaro is the same platform as the Pontiac G8, the police car, and the Holden Commodore, another GM Australia vehicle.

The large appliance business carries this to extreme. We have a 22 cu ft. Sears Kenmore fridge which is identical to an Amana, which is also largely a Whirlpool, Magic Chef, Maytag, Kitchen Aid, and other spinoffs.

Product simplification and having one component perform several functions also has large payoffs. This should not be confused with so called Value Engineering which really means cheapening things without regard to functionality, ergonomics and component life. GE used this in their appliance division and it resulted in considerable decrease in product quality and serviceability. As a result they are basically out of the appliance business after selling it to Electrolux or the Mexicans.

30

Commonality is definitely a focus, but I wasn’t thinking across product, I was thinking of an individual product, as you described in your last paragraph. The old way was to design a part for each individual function and put them together with little screws, nuts, and washers. By making a given part perform more than one function, for example a cover also being the mounting for misc hardware, and attaching everything with posts molded into the plastic cover rather than with screws and washers, costs are reduced considerably. As are problems.

But damn, despite having spent years as an advocate of this, I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called. It originated from a Japanese engineer. Of course, I can’t remember what day it is either! :smile:

31

The serpentine belt is a good example of having one belt do a number of things. My 1976 Ford Granada had 5 belts; Fan/water pump, alternator, A/C compressor, smog pump, power steering pump.You could call it multi-functionality, just as we have multiskilling and multi-tasking in human resource utilization, much to the unions’ chagrin.

The McPherson strut is a brilliant example of doing away with a number of parts and have suspension, steering and shock absorbers all in one.

32

Good examples. I’ll have to steal them sometime. :naughty: