GM TRAINING"REORGANIZATION"

[MARY SHERICK]

HOW MANY DEALERS ARE GOING TO BE ABLE TO GET TECHS IN TRAINING CLASSES, WHEN GM IS GOING TO SHUT DOWN ALL BUT SIX TRAINING CENTERS. WHAT A LOAD OF IT!!! THE TRUTH IS THAT RAYTHEON BID FOR THE TRAINING AT HALF WHAT GM SPENDS. THIS IS JUST ANOTHER WAY TO CUT COSTS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE DEALERS, THE TECHS, AND ULTIMATELY THE CUSTOMERS WHOSE VEHICLES WE ARE IN BUSINESS TO REPAIR. ANYONE ELSE HEARD ANTHING GOOD? AND, THEY WILL BE OVERSEEING THE ASEP PROGRAM TOO!! GM WILL STILL BE DOING THE GMYES AT THE VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOLS.

[Michael White]

The poeple I have discussed this with have many concerns. I think eventually there will be a large volume of CPT videos, CD training, etc. We are in central California and the only training center here will be in L.A. We average about 10 days of GM training a month since our dealership is only about 35 miles away in San Leandro.This will stop. There is a lot of discussion about satellite trainig as well. I guess we will all have to waite to see what they do. I cannot see, however, where the training will be even close to the quality it is now. The only benifit I can see is the ability to train more poeple, if not all in video, Pulsat, computer based training. We have a BMW dealership in our group. They do a excellent job in computer training over their form of Pulsat. So if they can do it, and GM really wants to do it, it probably can be done well.

Mike

[robc]

Defintely training will suffer or be more burdensome than it was before. But what I am more concerned about is the loss of these centers as a resource. How many times in the past did GM send out one of these guys/gals to help you on a problem car? How many times did your techs call them and go over a difficult problem together?

I am not sure how many have yet realized with no GM training centers (Raytheon owns them now) and no GM technical assistance center (that's Minacs), we have nearly no direct technical contact with GM. It looks to be all e-mail, postcards and videotapes from STG. Can you imagine if you told your customers you're too busy to talk to them and that they'll get a videotape describing what was done?



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** Rob, Editor WD&S **
Help is only a message post away!
robc@dealersedge.com

[jrcal]

I agree, everyone will suffer because of the loss of the training centers. We have been used calling on their expertise when we had a difficult repair on our hands and they have always been great to work with.

What I want to know is how did Raytheon accomplish the training for dealers in Europe? What media did they use and what will they use here? Is Gm aware how much more the lack of training will affect warranty cost? Are they planning to make the dealer responsible for some of the training?

No news is not good news in this case. Why is GM leaving us in the dark about this?



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JC

[Dave]

At our service club meeting we had the manager of the Dedham Traing Center as a guest. In my mind all he cared about was where he would be working after June. When asked what could be done after the fact to keep more centers open he said the only people that get heard was the owners. Does this mean the dealer groups where not involved in this dession?

[GreggT67]

Originally it was Hughes (at the time a part of GM) that got the European contact for training in 1996. In late 1997, Raytheon bought part of Hughes from GM (which included training). Training was never a function of Raytheon before the Hughes acquisition.

[jrcal]

I forsee my training expenses being tripled because of the high expense of sending techs to classes that are now going to have to include airline tickets and hotel reservations. Maybe Raytheon will introduce a frequent flyer program!

Seriously, what thinking could have brought us to the point of building even more high tech vehicles requiring specialized training of a shrinking qualified tech population to SIX training center locations!!! Did GM really save any money in the long run or just pass the expense ( and the problems associated with it ) on to the dealers?

Only time will tell.