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Stellantis/Chrysler work-from-home, global teams, and skunkworks: how to do it right (and wrong)
Feb 4, 2025
Stellantis recently demanded that Chrysler engineers return to the CTC, only to put them, unprepared, into global teams. How’s that working? and how did Chrysler do it most successfully in the past? What can Stellantis do? We pack a lot into a short video!
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0:03
hi this is motels Dave and I'm here to
0:05
talk briefly about engineering where
0:08
stantis has uh called Engineers back to
0:11
the office they have to go to the CTC
0:14
why do they have to go to the CTC I
0:16
think it's because it's a talking point
0:18
right now and executives are all besides
0:20
themselves to say that you have to go
0:21
back to the office because you can't be
0:23
productive at home you could say that
0:25
there's an argument that they're right
0:27
if you go back and you look at p
0:30
programs where Chrysler has really
0:32
exceeded expectations and those would be
0:34
things like the 1924 Chrysler it would
0:37
be things like the 1960 Valiant which
0:40
was a revolutionary car for chry Lord at
0:42
the time it was really pretty amazing
0:44
and it would be things like the Viper
0:46
these were basically skunkworks projects
0:49
I'm talking about the Valiant and the
0:50
Viper here the cards beginning with the
0:51
letter V but not Volari just Valiant and
0:55
Viper and if you look at the Valiant
0:58
they had a group of people
1:00
mostly younger people they had a mission
1:03
that was very clearly defined but they
1:06
had a lot of freedom within that mission
1:07
to do what they needed to do the company
1:09
needed a compact car they decided what
1:12
size it would be and then everybody was
1:16
off and running they got to make all the
1:18
decisions and they did it as a team on
1:21
this rented building off Midland Avenue
1:24
which wasn't that large keeping in mind
1:26
that normally in Highland Park at that
1:28
point and for all I know in Auburn Hills
1:30
today you had specialty by functions so
1:33
you had one guy who did nothing but
1:35
change axles to meet the needs of the
1:37
current cars and you had all these
1:40
groups with people working in silos
1:42
doing their own thing and then you put
1:45
representatives from all these teams
1:47
together into the same room and they
1:49
were able to talk to each other and to
1:50
communicate and you could get
1:51
Serendipity and you ended up with a car
1:54
that was far better than the Ford or the
1:56
Chevy and that was actually proven at
1:58
the racetrack
2:00
uh quite well as you know Plymouth
2:02
Valiants well Valiants at the time they
2:04
weren't plymouths yet they came in 1
2:06
through 7th in the compact car race the
2:09
only NASCAR compact car race against the
2:12
Chevys and the Fords and they were
2:14
highly successful around the world they
2:16
were sold in Australia and New Zealand
2:18
and Europe all over South America and
2:20
they did quite well South America South
2:23
Africa the Valiant was the one Mopar
2:26
that everybody bought and with the Viper
2:30
was very similar you had a small group
2:32
of people they were in the Plymouth Road
2:35
office complex the former Kelvinator
2:37
Factory this dilapidated old place and
2:41
they got together and they were able to
2:44
work together to do things that
2:46
everybody thought couldn't be done and
2:48
when they came out with the Viper it was
2:50
amazing it set the world on its ear
2:52
basically and you've got basic you've
2:55
got a vehicle that used a variant of a
2:58
truck engine that was being developed
2:59
for for other reasons an all aluminum
3:02
version of this engine and the actual
3:04
stories are in my Dodge Viper book which
3:06
you really should read it covers every
3:07
generation of Viper and it covers the
3:09
origin stories really well it's the only
3:11
book I know of that takes all of the
3:13
origin stories other people told and
3:15
tries to reconcile them all but it's
3:17
full of cool Automotive Engineering
3:19
stories anyway the point is is that you
3:22
get people together and a Skunk Works
3:25
you have a tight schedule you have an
3:27
impossible goal and you put everybody
3:30
together and they'll meet it usually and
3:32
if you really want a good description of
3:34
that you see Tracy K the Sol a new
3:36
machine he did a very good job
3:38
describing as an embedded journalist
3:41
that process and making a new computer
3:43
it was a mini computer so the book is
3:45
clearly a little out of date but the
3:47
human processes are
3:49
not so yeah Serendipity and putting
3:51
people together so they work together
3:53
the Chrysler Technology Center in Auburn
3:55
Hills was designed for that purpose but
3:59
they don't work that way anymore they
4:01
don't use cross functional teams anymore
4:03
they don't do the platform team
4:06
approach they they went back to uh
4:09
working in
4:10
Specialties and there's reasons for it
4:13
and there's reasons against it we won't
4:15
go into that now there are reasons to
4:17
have people working together but what
4:18
did stantis actually do with the
4:20
American Engineers they have them come
4:22
back to work and then at work they spend
4:24
their day on the computer on WebEx or
4:26
Zoom or whatever teleconferencing with
4:28
people around the the world not in the
4:31
same building around the
4:33
world what's the
4:36
point is is it a control thing is it an
4:39
IT thing well they've already been
4:40
working remotely so the it is already
4:42
set up the security is presumably
4:44
already there they're told pull down the
4:46
window shade if you're working on the
4:47
computer or whatever there there's not
4:50
going to be the you accidentally meet
4:52
somebody and you exchange information
4:54
and you have these leaps that's not
4:56
going to happen when you're doing a
4:57
global team quite the same way and how
5:00
much training did they get from what I
5:01
was told they got no training and that
5:04
might be wrong I talked to only three
5:06
engineers and they told me no training
5:08
maybe that's wrong maybe it's right but
5:11
there's human processes here there's
5:13
cultural differences and when I talk
5:14
cultural differences I'm not talking
5:16
what most people say Americans are like
5:18
this Indians are like that that each
5:21
organization has a different
5:22
organizational culture and when you have
5:24
people working together from different
5:26
organizations there's got to be a way to
5:28
deal with those issues as well as the
5:31
language issues and the cultural issues
5:33
that you do get from people on different
5:34
continents working together and you have
5:37
the American groups working with the
5:39
quote lowcost country groups and
5:41
presumably with the French and Italian
5:43
groups and it's all very difficult and
5:46
then uh there's the whole thing of well
5:48
why are we so delayed why why don't we
5:51
have everything on time well
5:53
duh maybe this has something to do with
5:57
it so this is Penny wise pound foolish
6:00
you you should be putting in the time
6:02
and the effort to do the training you
6:04
should have some team facilitation going
6:06
on I'm not talking touchy feely I'm
6:08
talking the very well-proven well
6:12
documented well researched process
6:15
Consulting look it up process Consulting
6:18
I'm not talking about uh workflow
6:20
analysis here I'm talking about looking
6:22
at the process of people working
6:24
together and have somebody analyze it
6:26
and attend to it and deal with it and
6:28
find out what the issues are so you can
6:30
fix them this is the way it should be
6:33
this is the way to get people working
6:35
together most productively in groups and
6:37
if you try to bypass these steps it
6:40
might work but probably it'll be slower
6:42
more expensive and not work as
6:44
well anyway that's what 30 years as a
6:47
consultant tells me so this is motals
6:51
Dave and with that I'm going to sign off
6:53
until next time
#Automotive Industry
#Social Sciences
#Flexible Work Arrangements
#Teleconferencing