Butting Out

The Detroit News auto insider comes up with some great inside stuff. The special place for Harvard in this article warms the heart, especially because auto industry insularity limits Harvies to the legal department, except for execs who’ve been through short courses at the Business school.

The 24 minute break in each half shift will certainly be a target for cost cutting. It sounds like this is a tag relief plant rather than a mass relief plant. The Dodger doubts it’s spent mostly in the crapper. Probably the increased time – if there is increased time - is a product of the Wayne County no-smoking at work rule. It takes longer to get where the smokers can smoke.

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Thursday, October 27, 2005
Ford cracks down on rest room breaks
Some workers spend more than 48 minutes away from the line at Wayne truck plant, slowing production of SUVs.
By Louis Aguilar / The Detroit News
In a memo that was distributed Tuesday to workers at Ford's Michigan Truck plant in Wayne, plant managers said too many of the factory's 3,500 hourly workers are spending more than the 48 minutes allotted per shift to use the bathroom. The extra-long breaks are slowing production of the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator sport utility vehicles that are built there, the company said.

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Bathroom monitoring is just one of a number of "incredibly stupid ideas" being floated by automakers, said Sandy Munro, CEO of Munro & Associates, a manufacturing consulting firm in Troy. Munro said a number of suppliers have told him that Ford and General Motors Corp., which is also trying to battle back from deep losses, are beginning to explore small ways to save money.
"It's a giant throwback to the bad old days of the '70s and '80s, when you squeezed the guy at the bottom of the heap any way you could," Munro said. "That only causes lots of discontent, and only someone from Harvard could think of something as stupid as monitoring bathroom time."
Ford spokeswoman Anne Marie Gattari said the 48-minute bathroom break limit is spelled out in the UAW contract that covers local plant rules.