DEARBORN, MI—Ford Motor Co. is piloting new software from Siemens that facilitates virtual navigation within its assembly plants, helping the company improve global collaboration and better share best practices.
DETROIT—GM CEO Dan Akerson plans to retire, and the automaker will appoint Mary Barra as his successor. GM’s senior vice president for product development, Barra will become the first female CEO of a major automaker.
DETROIT—The Treasury Department yesterday sold the last of its shares of GM stock, underscoring the domestic auto industry’s rebound from the deepest downturn since the Great Depression.
SHORTER, AL—Hyundai and Kia supplier Taesung Alabama broke ground Friday on a $6.6 million assembly plant here. Construction should be finished by May, and the plant will create 70 new jobs by 2015.
DETROIT—GM is investing $24 million in electrical generation equipment that will allow the company to use more landfill gas at its assembly plants in Fort Wayne, IN, and Orion, MI. The new equipment will generate more than 14 megawatts of electricity from landfill gas, saving a combined $10 million in energy costs each year at the facilities.
ROCHESTER, NY—Perseverance and creativity enabled a 75-year old GM assembly plant here to go landfill-free. The journey took four years and included seven attempts to recycle a challenging oily filter sludge generated from a machining operation.
COLUMBUS, OH—Kerry Ketchem, 62, an automotive engineer, has been sentenced to eight years in prison on three counts of felony theft involving a scheme to steal catalytic converters from an assembly plant.
DETROIT—With its membership tumbling sharply and a long-running effort to organize foreign-owned makers still in limbo, the UAW is looking at the possibility of raising its dues by 25 percent—its first hike since 1967.