General Motors
Job Design and
Design of Goods
and Services
¿What good or service
should we offer?
The decision in this strategic
area focuses on how to fulfill
the design requirements of
products in the context of
General Motors’ operations
management.
¿How should we
design these
products?
The specifications for
automobile manufacture are
included in human resource
planning, as well as cost
effectiveness measures that
operations managers
implement in GM’s plants.
Quality
Management
¿How do we define
quality?
General Motors’ vision
statement and mission
statement address quality
management by emphasizing
value and technological
breakthrough in business
processes.
¿Who is responsible
for quality?
General Motors’ operations
managers implement a
general set of quality
standards for all products,
with slight variations based
on product types, models or
variants.
Process and
Capacity Design
¿What processes and
capacity will these
products require?
General Motors addresses
such concerns through an
operations management
approach involving cost
minimization that does not
reduce productivity in the
automotive business.
¿What equipment and
technology are
needed to carry out
these processes?
The capacity design of a GM
plant depends on the
product types, models, or
variants that it
manufactures. For example,
the process and capacity
design for a Chevrolet plant
differs from the process and
capacity design for a
Cadillac plant.
Location
Strategy
¿Where should we
locate the facilities?
General Motors Company’s
objective in this strategic
decision area is to optimize
the location of operations
based on the locations of
resources and markets
¿On what criteria
should we base our
location decision?
General Motors’ operations
managers use talent
availability, supply
sufficiency, and operational
costs, among other factors, in
determining the desirability
of a location
Layout Design
and Strategy
¿How should we make
the distribution of our
facilities?
The company designs the
layout of its facilities around
automation as a key
characteristic for this
strategic decision area of
operations management.
¿How big does the
facility need to be to
meet our plan?
General Motors’ layout
design and strategy include
operational considerations
like assembly lines and
corresponding movement of
materials, intermediary
products, and finished
products.
Human
Resources
¿How will we provide
a reasonable work
environment?
The objective is to use
appropriate job design and
HR programs to attract talent
and develop the resulting
human resources to support
the business.
¿How much should we
expect our employees
to produce?
General Motors’
organizational culture
reinforces business goals
while boosting employee
morale and productivity. In
implementing such job
designs and HR programs,
operations managers
ensure that employees are
highly productive and
effective in contributing to
GM’s operational success.
Supply Chain
Management
¿Should we make or
buy this component?
In this area of operations
management, the strategic
decision focuses on
maintaining adequate
supply to General Motors
Company. The objective is
to maximize supply chain
effectiveness and efficiency
by solving operational
barriers and bottlenecks.
¿Who are our
suppliers and who can
integrate into our e-
commerce program?
For example, programs for
transparency and
cooperation align suppliers’
growth and capabilities with
GM’s growth and supply
needs. Such programs are
included in General Motors’
corporate social
responsibility strategy, with
suppliers considered as a
stakeholder group.
Inventory
Management
¿How much inventory
should we have of
each item?
Operations managers deal
with maintaining sufficient
inventory that supports
operational goals. In this
case, the operations
management objective is to
ensure that General
Motors’ inventories
reinforce strategies for
customer satisfaction and
manufacturing schedules,
while considering the limits
of the supply chain
¿When should we
reorder?
In this strategic decision
area, General Motors also
determines inventory levels
based on productivity
requirements.
Scheduling Maintenance
¿Will we be better off ¿Who is responsible
if we keep people for for maintenance?
low periods?
The company’s operations
managers are concerned with
Operations management
maintaining automobile
processes must optimize
production processes and
resource utilization to
corporate office processes
satisfy customers’ demands.
that satisfy productivity
Thus, General Motors
requirements.
Company’s objective in this
strategic decision area is to
develop and implement
suitable short-term and
intermediate schedules for ¿When should we
resource utilization
perform
maintenance?
¿What work should
we do next?
This strategic decision area
of operations management
presents General Motors
with challenges, especially
when implementing
General Motors develops and downsizing strategies that
implements human resource potentially reduce the
schedules to ensure that productive capacity of the
various processes of the automotive business.
automotive business are
highly productive.