Lordstown Assembly

The Lordstown Complex is a General Motors automobile factory in Lordstown, Ohio comprising three facilities: Vehicle Assembly, Metal Center, and Paint Shop. The plant opened in 1966. Lordstown currently builds the global Chevrolet Cruze compact car.

In 2006, as part of GM scaling back production nationwide, the third shift at the Lordstown plant ceased operations. An employee buyout and early retirements eliminated the need for layoffs. In the summer of 2008, when gas prices soared, the third shift returned in August due to increased demand of the Chevrolet Cobalt, resulting in the creation of nearly 1,000 jobs. Shortly thereafter, General Motors entered into bankruptcy, and two shifts were cut.

In 2010, in preparation to build the new compact Chevrolet Cruze, all members laid off from the plant returned to work. Numerous workers from shuttered GM plants in the US were moved to Lordstown for the open positions. The plant is currently operating on a three-shift schedule with approximately 4,500 employees.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, both Hillary Clinton and John McCain made stops at Lordstown. Shortly after election Barack Obama visited Lordstown to celebrate new product announcements and to proclaim success for the auto industry rescue.

Plants operated under Chevrolet Assembly management prior to General Motors Assembly Division management (most established pre-1945). Additional Chevrolet Assembly plants were located at Buffalo, New York and Oakland, California. Framingham, Massachusetts is unusual in that it changed from Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac Assembly management to Chevy management prior to becoming GMAD.

The terminology is confusing because most plants assembled more than just Chevrolet or B-O-P, and refers to the management structure only. The five brands originated vehicles from their respective "home" plants, where vehicles were assembled locally for their respective regions. Vehicles were also produced in "knock-down" kits and sent to the branch assembly locations. The "home" branches were Flint, Michigan for both Buick and Chevrolet; Oldsmobile at Lansing, Michigan; Pontiac at Pontiac, Michigan; and Cadillac at Detroit, Michigan.

This assembly plant was the place of the notorious Lordstown strike in 1972. Bitterness against management resulted in many defective Chevys coming off the line with torn upholstery and other defects; this all culminated in a strike which lasted 22 days, giving the term "Lordstown Syndrome", and costing GM $150 million. According to Peter Drucker the management consultant, it was not just the rigid discipline of the assembly line, or the speedup of operation, but rather that the workers almost unanimously felt they could have done a better job at designing much of their own work than GM's industrial engineers (hence the need to include the floor workers in part of the plant design process)

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