GM Ignition... Ray DeGiorgio....

[Smokey]

Enjoy your new home... under the bus...

http://europe.autonews.com/article/20140605/COPY/306059903

[Stonent]

I'm very surprised they named someone directly like that.

[dannyf]

The report is overly and probably purposefully simplistic.

Sure, this DeGiorgio guy sounds like responsible - we haven't heard his side of the story yet.

But the failure is far less of an engineering failure than a process management failure. A well managed company should have put in place a sufficiently robust process and checks and balances that will catch issues like this. Otherwise, you have hundreds of billions of dollars market cap resting in the hands of hundreds of thousands of little engineers like Degiorgio - In that case, a blow-up like this is bound to happen.

This is a management failure first and foremost.

[Stonent]

I guess on the one hand fixing the problem without documenting it looks like he was hiding something, but on the other hand he did try to correct it.

[DJ]

This is a management failure first and foremost.

Precisely.

This is not isolated to gm. It is virtually endemic in us industry.

Good/fast and above all, cheap. Yes, it violates reality. Does not matter.

ALWAYS driven from the top. Their bonuses ride on it.

Was not always this way.

[Spike101]

I think this is just pathetic.
Obviously the higher management is also responsible if something like this happens. They make millions of earnings from the company and justify it by saying that they have oh-so-much responsibility. But when it's time to take responsibility they blame some low ranking engineer, pat themselves on the shoulders and are done?!.. Really that's just sad.

[Alexei.Polkhanov]

I would not buy that poor victim-engineer story as well. If you are engineer and you feel like management pushing you to ship something that does not meet your personal quality bar - just quit. Recruiters are always lining up for good engineers - you may even get your +15% and sign in bonus. Karma will be on your side.

Whole system relies on constant conflict between engineer who wants to make everything 6x reliable and thus "over engineered" and expensive and management that wants to make everything as cheap and profitable as possible. GM is all unionised I guess and wages are much higher than average in industry meaning that if you quit you will certainly have to take a dip. Now add someone who is simply lazy, incompetent or just conflict-avoidant kind of personality and kaboom! bad things happen. NASA reportedly suffered from this kind of social problems too. In other words it is more likely to happen in situations when that kind of status quo formed between management and engineers.

[miguelvp]

I don't buy this at all, they sure have a testing group that would have found the flaw. Also if DeGiorgio referred to the switch in question as the switch from hell back in 2002 when it was approved, it should have raised some red flags and make him approve it.

Something about this paragraph in the article doesn't make much sense to me:

Ironically, it was DeGiorgio who ultimately fixed the part he referred to in a 2002 e-mail as “the switch from hell.” But by the time anyone else in the company figured out what he had done, GM says the switch had cost 13 people their lives.

Valukas’ report says there is “no question” that DeGiorgio, the switch’s design release engineer since 1999, knew it fell short of GM’s specifications when he approved it in 2002, though DeGiorgio told investigators who interviewed him that he didn’t realize it was a safety risk.

There’s no evidence anyone else knew the switch was out-of-spec at the time, the report says; neither did DeGiorgio tell anyone when issues with the part were brought to his attention multiple times.

and later when asked in 2004 about meeting torque specifications he was silent, so yeah, he probably knew it since it seems he red flagged the switch, but why did it get approved by him? Seems to me there is more to this than just him.

Somehow something doesn't add up.

[mariush]

The Daily Show had a good segment about it (video embedded on the page) : http://jalopnik.com/the-daily-shows-take-down-of-the-gm-recall-is-amazingl-1557576762

[Alexei.Polkhanov]

Video does not work outside of US 

[retrolefty]

I don't buy this at all, they sure have a testing group that would have found the flaw. Also if DeGiorgio referred to the switch in question as the switch from hell back in 2002 when it was approved, it should have raised some red flags and make him approve it.

Something about this paragraph in the article doesn't make much sense to me:

Ironically, it was DeGiorgio who ultimately fixed the part he referred to in a 2002 e-mail as “the switch from hell.” But by the time anyone else in the company figured out what he had done, GM says the switch had cost 13 people their lives.

Valukas’ report says there is “no question” that DeGiorgio, the switch’s design release engineer since 1999, knew it fell short of GM’s specifications when he approved it in 2002, though DeGiorgio told investigators who interviewed him that he didn’t realize it was a safety risk.

There’s no evidence anyone else knew the switch was out-of-spec at the time, the report says; neither did DeGiorgio tell anyone when issues with the part were brought to his attention multiple times.

and later when asked in 2004 about meeting torque specifications he was silent, so yeah, he probably knew it since it seems he red flagged the switch, but why did it get approved by him? Seems to me there is more to this than just him.

Somehow something doesn't add up.

 Of course there is more to this then just him, he is just the first that is being reported by this specific article. 14 others were also fired, we just don't yet know their role is this rather large screw up.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra said this morning she fired 15 people who either were incompetent or irresponsible in their actions involving fatally flawed ignition switches that are linked to 13 deaths in crashes where airbags failed to inflate.

[mariush]

Video does not work outside of US 

I'm not from US and it worked for me.  It probably failed for you because the Daily Show is broadcast in Canada and they don't want local station to lose advertising money because of you watching youtube instead.

[dannyf]

We don't know who else were fired so it is hard to judge the firm / CEO. I think any senior manager involved in making that decision should be fired. Certainly the head of engineering, QA, and legal departments.

The whole case is quite interesting in that technically, the GM we are talking about today has zero liability whatsoever to the victims: that liability belongs to the estate of the old GM that went into the bankruptcy. So in court, the NewCo actually has a pretty good case denying all the lawsuits and the victims have no standing in bringing the lawsuits against GM.

Strategically, and politically, that's obviously suicidal. How GM handles this case would have profound impact on how large corporations handle their liabilities through the bankruptcy proceedings. If it gets to the point where liabilities cannot be cleased through a bankruptcy, it would be sad for the renewal of enterprises.

[retrolefty]

We don't know who else were fired so it is hard to judge the firm / CEO. I think any senior manager involved in making that decision should be fired. Certainly the head of engineering, QA, and legal departments.

The whole case is quite interesting in that technically, the GM we are talking about today has zero liability whatsoever to the victims: that liability belongs to the estate of the old GM that went into the bankruptcy. So in court, the NewCo actually has a pretty good case denying all the lawsuits and the victims have no standing in bringing the lawsuits against GM.

Strategically, and politically, that's obviously suicidal. How GM handles this case would have profound impact on how large corporations handle their liabilities through the bankruptcy proceedings. If it gets to the point where liabilities cannot be cleased through a bankruptcy, it would be sad for the renewal of enterprises.

Yes all that, and plus as the Federal Government bailed them out and orchestrated the bankruptcy (so to ensure that they would continue to honor the union workers past and present retirements) and has a seat on the board of directors (we often now call GM = Government Motors) there is no way politically they could use the bankruptcy to escape the past liability.

[Stonent]

I actually had one of the affected cars, but I wrecked it a few years ago.  I do remember some of the issues the mentioned with the ignition key.

[staxquad]

Video does not work outside of US 

for deprived Canadians:

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/snr0ra/true-defective--gm

[ignator]

To me the problem is not the ignition switch, but the system design that disables the air bag deployment if the switch is not in the engine 'ON' running detent. In another article I read on this issue, there are no DOT (department of transportation) system design standards, and each company designs their airbag systems with no regulatory over site. The idea being they are free to innovate.
I would expect a proper system that if there are occupants sitting in any seat protected by airbags, the system would be armed. Think of a parked car, that is off, but is hit by another vehicle. Why have such an expensive piece of equipment, only intended to protect occupants if the machine is moving. Yes there may be unintended deployment, and a few deaths from this (recall the baby in the front passenger seat issue).
What I have not seen is a report of the 13 deaths, of how many were not using the required seat belt restraint system, as this was required, and the airbag is a secondary system. How many of these vehicles were operating in excess road speeds, and the driver lost control, as many deaths were the result of impact with trees. And it was the rough ride and going airborne that caused the junk on the key chain to rotate the switch to the 'AUX' detent.
There are many problems with expecting airbags to deploy, as this is a single string system. There's only one power supply, and single string sensors, processors, and explosive deployment devices.
I think GM has been thrown under the bus, with lawmakers that don't understand you can't make a perfect safety system.
But the engineers (and I bet many layers of management), ignored the root cause of the failure to deploy the airbag. And I bet they also rationalized that the operator had some blame in putting the vehicle in an adverse safety situation.

[GEuser]

Imo , Toyota gets $1.2 billion fine for "lying to the American public" , GM gets a $35 million fine for being "American" , its total racist hypocritical capitalism , and by Law! 

[miguelvp]

Imo , Toyota gets $1.2 billion fine for "lying to the American public" , GM gets a $35 million fine for being "American" , its total racist hypocritical capitalism , and by Law!

Toyota was fined $66 million for delayed response after a 6 million vehicle recall, Later on they paid the $1.2 billion settlement.
GM got fined $35 million (the maximum the U.S. Department of Transportation is allowed in this case for a 3 million vehicle recall) but that's just for the delayed response. It's not over yet since investigations are still ongoing. Since it's half of the vehicles it might cost them over $600 million to settle.

But seems to be the same proportion for the fine as Toyota's. We will see what happens.

[JFA]

There was this old joke...
"In the fifties, engineers ran companies. We didn't know exactly how much money we made, but everyone was living nicely and we paid dividends.
Then, in the sixties came the accountant. By then, we knew down to the penny how much the company was loosing."

And to that, I'll add
- by the eighties, came the professional managers who had no clue how to put batteries in a flashlight, and decided to include planned obsolescence and programmed failure in the products to increase corporate numbers...

I left a job because I was asked to modify my own design so they would break more frequently because "we make more profits on service". Ironically, the company was making portable equipment for remote intervention. Imagine someone up in the great north, 5h flight in a Twin Otter, in the Tundra, and the equipment fails? Great!

Why this? We were selling the best equipment in the market, at half the price. Because the lousy salesman was not able to do his job properly, sold BMWs at Lada prices...

Can you tell I (professionally) hate (most) salespeople and accounting staff ?

This is a management failure first and foremost.

Precisely.

This is not isolated to gm. It is virtually endemic in us industry.

Good/fast and above all, cheap. Yes, it violates reality. Does not matter.

ALWAYS driven from the top. Their bonuses ride on it.

Was not always this way.

[miguelvp]

At a previous company we were approached to make a promotional video for Alberta Tar Sands, to show how cool it will be to live in that community and the job opportunities.

We turned it down and we could have used the money, the company I worked for became insolvent. Not that little promotional video would have saved it anyways.

Edit: As I recall the community we were supposed to promote was on Edmonton, but this was 5 or 6 years ago.