GM CEO says making ventillators changed the company culture

DETROIT (AP) — The CEO of General Motors said Thursday that the automaker learned valuable lessons last year when it stepped in to boost emergency production of ventillators to treat severely ill COVID-19 patients.

The company was able to help a small West Coast ventillator maker start large-scale production in about a month. That gave GM the confidence that it could speed up other tasks, such as bringing electric and other vehicles to market faster, CEO Mary Barra said.

“Doing the ventillator project was kind of a game changer from a General Motors perspective, from a culture-change perspective," Barra said in a wide-ranging conversation with members of the Automotive Press Association of Detroit.

Barra said that in the past, the GM management team would have resisted when told they needed to help a company that builds 250 ventillators per month accelerate production to 30,000 in 150 days.

“They would have looked at me like I was crazy,” she said.

Instead, employees approached the problem as if their loved ones might need the breathing machines and accomplished the goal, Barra said. Still the company was accused by former President Donald Trump of moving too slowly.

In March of last year, GM put hundreds of workers on the project to help Ventec Life Systems of the Seattle area ramp up its production at a time when there were fears that the country would run short of the breathing machines.

GM put up capital and converted an electronics factory in Indiana to help make the ventillators with a speed that one supply chain expert said was “lightning fast.”

Barra said the company now uses the same approach for its own electric vehicles, software, and partially automated driver-assist systems.

Also at the event, Barra gave a strong hint that Michigan may get an electric...