2006 Fall Issue - UAW-Chrysler.com

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Mistake-Proof Power
But light as the fixture is, Moore
suggested that one of the handles be moved
to make the job easier on workers with a
shorter reach. Working with an engineer,
he got the job done. And Moore couldn’t
be happier.
ALL-AROUND WIN-WIN
Reactions like Moore’s make a lot of
sense to Dan Lewandowski, UAW JAOP
and Smart facilitator at Toledo North.
Lewandowski will be helping to migrate
Smart Manufacturing techniques throughout
the plant as Nitro production hits
high gear. “Mistake-proofing is a winwin
for the company and the union,”
he says. “It makes things easier for the
workers and they won’t get in trouble for
making mistakes. It also gets costs down
for the company.”
Among the significant innovations that
will be coming to workstations throughout
the plant are Smart tools like Pick Lights. In
workstations with parts that have a similar
appearance, a green light will appear near
the correct part for the next vehicle.
John Moore hard at work
building a Jeep Liberty.
“ Mistake-proofing is a
win-win for the company and
the union.” — DAN LEWANDOWSKI
Reaching into the bin breaks a light screen
and tells the computer the right part is
being installed. But if an operator forgets to
pick that part or picks a part out of another
bin, the bin shows a red light and the
vehicle will not move on until that part is
returned to its bin.
Hundreds of errors that can be
prevented by Pick Lights have been
identified, says Lewandowski. And that’s
just one of the places where errors are being
hunted down and eliminated.
In underbody welding, Mickey
Viertlbeck is enthusiastic about a new
system of error-proofing. The newly
retired UAW Local 12 member explains
that the hot-stamp steel being used in the
Nitros is significantly softer than the steel
used to make the Liberty, requiring even
more precision in welding. Viertlbeck says
that an innovative system of lights, barcodes
and LED displays now helps his former
team position ladders (underbodies)
correctly for robotic welding. Bad welds,
he says, are now very rare.
SMART LAUNCH —
SMOOTH LAUNCH
Viertlbeck was part of the launch team for
the Nitro, spending every weekend leading up
to the launch in the plant, cleaning out the
front structure GEO underbodies each Friday
and then running test Nitro bodies through
them. Orion Gregory, known as “O.G.” in
the plant, got involved in the Nitro launch
even earlier; he built Nitros from scratch at
Jeep and Truck Engineering in Detroit after
going through pilot training.
“I was probably the first person in the
world to drive a Nitro,” says O.G., a Local
12 member. That’s not bragging, he says,
just the truth. He was also one of the first to
pass along suggestions about how to
improve the Nitro, based on what he
learned in pilot training. “We came back to
Toledo and created our own pilot room
here to refine the car — and we brought the
engineers with us.” O.G. used his skills as a
14 TOMORROW FALL 2006 www.uawdcx.com