A wide-ranging and ultimately diffuse reconstruction of how General
Motors managed to launch a breakthrough line of popularly priced
small passenger cars under the Saturn aegis at a time when the
parent organization was experiencing convulsive financial,
governance, and sales difficulties. Drawing on personal research
that began within a year of GM's 1985 announcement that the Saturn
plant would be located in rural Tennessee's Maury Country, Sherman
(Fast Lane on a Dirt Road, 1991, etc. - not reviewed) offers a
low-key, anecdotal account of the Motown giant's problems in
creating a vehicle designed to vie with Japanese imports, and in
producing it in a way that went against the grain of a hidebound
corporate culture. He also addresses the ripple effects of the
project on an agricultural backwater rich in Civil War history and
antebellum architectural treasures. With the exception of those who
sold their property early on, Sherman recounts, few residents of
the communities surrounding the Saturn complex gained any
substantive economic benefits, mainly because all Saturn jobs were
reserved for UAW members moved in from other installations GM had
closed down. Covered as well here are the snags encountered in
convincing cynical trade unionists and their status-conscious
superiors that the company meant what it said about teamwork on the
assembly line. By late 1990, the Saturn had overcome all obstacles
and made its way from the drawing board to showroom. Today, with
demand still outstripping supply, the car is a marketplace success,
albeit one that has yet to turn a profit for its sponsor - whose
position as a competitive world-class enterprise remains in some
doubt. While tellingly detailed in many respects, Sherman's
narrative wanders all over the lot, fragmenting its focus - and
impact. (Kirkus Reviews)
In this compelling, readable narrative, Joe Sherman explores virtually every aspect of the Saturn project, America's biggest and most publicized industrial success of the last decade. Here is the whole story - Saturn's mysterious beginnings inside General Motors in 1982; the site hunt that involved 38 states and ended in Spring Hill, Tennessee; the plant's construction and the transfer of 5,000 UAW members to a historic Southern backwater; and finally the small car's triumph in the marketplace.
Telling the story through the standpoint of dozens of characters, from local farmers, to inspired assembly line workers, to `car smarts and gut feel' engineers, Sherman brings to life a very American story of renewal and growth, of great hope and soured expectations, of greed and lost opportunities. And he reveals that if the USA wants to produce high quality products that the world will want to buy, it must begin to adopt methods similar to those used in making the Saturn car.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
