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NEWS
Holden staff exodus begins
Aussie engineers on the shopping list for GM international operationsGeneral Motors has started the process of plucking the best and brightest from Holden ahead of the end of local manufacturing and engineering and its conversion to a marketer of imported cars.
Consolidated international operations chief Stefan Jacoby confirmed offers were being made to Australian-based personnel ahead of the closures and the death of the locally-built Commodore, which will occur no later than the end of 2017.
Jacoby, who revealed at the Detroit auto show this month that it was his recommendation to cease manufacturing in Australia, has been in charge of Australian operations only since August.
Jacoby would not say who, how many or from what areas the staff being cherry-picked would come from.
“I can’t make any statement about that,” he simply said.
At Ford Australia, which closes its manufacturing facilities and kills off Falcon no later than October 2016, the reallocation of staff internationally is also under consideration.
However, because Ford is retaining its local design and engineering business, including the You Yangs proving ground, there is much less movement anticipated.
Australians travelling overseas to work for other subsidiaries of the automotive company they are employed by – be it Holden, Ford, Toyota or others – is no rarity.
But the closure of Holden’s substantial engineering as well as manufacturing facilities means GM suddenly has a glut of talent to choose from across a number of fields, including lean production, logistics, supply chain and finance to name a few.
The one area that is safe throughout this process is design, which will continue to have a presence in Melbourne after the end of local manufacturing.
But Holden’s design department – now known as General Motors Design Australia – has long provided talent to the GM world.
For instance, Australian designer Andrew Smith is in charge at Cadillac, while fellow Aussie Max Wolff sits in the same position at its direct blue oval rival Lincoln. Both learned their craft at Holden.
Another Aussie, GM international operations design director Michael Simcoe (pictured), who oversees both the Melbourne studio and GM’s Seoul (Korea) design centre spent six years in senior roles at the Warren technical centre in Detroit.
He says the lessons learned in the local industry make Australians attractive for international postings.
“Even if the Holden brand wasn’t going through the turmoil it is at the moment there would still be that movement,” Simcoe told motoring.com.au.
“If you go back to basics, people who have found their way inside a fairly specialist community inside Australia have to be kind of special, fairly talented, fairly ambitious and driven individuals.
“You have a tradition inside Holden particularly – but I think it is also true with Ford and other companies inside Australia – because there is not many of you, you get a lot of experience very quickly.
“Most of the people we have sent have been successful.”
Simcoe confirmed that the end of manufacturing meant more effort would be required to keep a flow of young and talented designers coming into the business. An important part of that would be communicating with universities, colleges and design students and alerting them to the opportunities.
“We demonstrate what we have to offer... and a nice piece of that now is being able to say to them ‘you are joining GM Design Australia and by the way we are part of a big and international organisation’.”
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Written byBruce Newton
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