Milestone 2

General Motors

Student’s Name

University Affiliation

Company Background and History

General Motors was started and established on 1908, by William Durant. The company initially was created to consolidate several other car companies, which included Buick, Cadillac, and others. GM is noted with introducing the electric self-starter, which made the hand-crank models a thing of the past (Britannica, 2018). By the late 1920s, the company passed Ford Motor Company as the leading American car manufacturer.

Description of Quality Issue

General Motors' quality issues vary with a range of topics that were a direct result of the culture of the company. GM has been around for many years; however, they set a bad taste throughout the nation with problems ranging from the workplace to customers losing their lives due to known mechanical issues (Britannica, 2018). General Motors knew these issues and chose to ignore them, which ultimately led to the recall scam.

Quality Culture

GM's culture was marked with one of a calm response. When media outlets received the news of the recall issues at the company, people began to dig deeper for the real root issue. Culture is the way a society or group thinks, behaves, and lives. Company culture is similar, only in the workplace environment (Britannica, 2018). GM's company culture was one of nondisclosure and utter disrespect for accountability.

Voice of customers

In GM, customers are given opportunities to express their opinion to help to improve the quality of services offered to them. The latter has helped to enhance the quality of products of the company's products.

Change Management Plan

Barra took over as CEO during the difficult times of the recall. Barra would add a VP of safety, a team of investigators, and a new internal program to recognize employees who blow the whistle on safety issues (Kessler, 2014). Safety issues are now raised to the highest levels of the company, a restructuring of the former decision-making process.

Quality theories, tool, and techniques

Quality assurance and control is one of the main objective that most manufacturers observe to increase organizational performance. Similarly, this also being practiced in GM Company.

Change implementation

GM was not looking for change until deaths were reported due to their internal negligence. Now, they are forced to make a substantial change (Kessler, 2014). The forces at work here are accidental deaths, lawsuits, and negative public attention. Of course, change creates resistance.

Resistance to change

Statistically, there are few instances within this company where resistance to change has been witnessed due to a lack of teamwork (Kessler, 2014). Some employees have not been able to comply with the implemented changes, thus oppose them.

References

Britannica, T. E. (2018, September 21). General Motors. Retrieved October 19, 2018, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/General-Motors-Corporation

Kessler, Aaron (2014, July 01). G.M. Sales Rise as Buyers Ignore Recalls: Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/02/business/automakers-report-june-sales.html

Korosec, K. (2015, August 24). Ten times more deaths linked to faulty switch than GM first reported. Retrieved October 27, 2018, from http://fortune.com/2015/08/24/feinberg-gm-faulty-ignition-switch/

Maynard, Micheline (2014, June 05). “The GM Nod” And Other Cultural Flaws Exposed By The Ignition Defect Report: Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2014/06/05/ignition-switch-report-spares-ceo-barra-but-exposes-gms-culture/#1b4264f250ed.