In Toledo, an Italian whirlwind brings the Fiat gospel

TOLEDO, Ohio -- The walls of Mauro Pino's office at Chrysler Group's Toledo Assembly Complex here are vibrant -- bright orange and yellow.

Why? Pino beams and exclaims: "Energy! Everything was gray before. I don't like gray."

Energy. The word sums up what this 50-year-old Italian dynamo has brought to Toledo since he arrived in April for a prodigious task: Implement Fiat's World Class Manufacturing system at these two sprawling factories, which make three vehicles on a 312-acre site.

Chrysler-Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne personally chose Pino for the job, and the stakes are high. If Chrysler is to rebound and thrive in the new Fiat era, it must drastically improve the quality of the vehicles it builds here. Studies show the quality gap separating Chrysler and its rivals is huge.

Pino approaches his job with passion, and the types of gestures that help win over workers who must take pride in being part of the process of change. Gestures like showing up on a motorcycle to ride with union workers in a holiday charity rally, and spending hours on the factory floor to understand the problems and the people who work there.

"You can't keep him off that floor," says Dan Henneman, UAW Local 12 shop chairman at both Toledo plants. "My team leaders know him on a first-name basis."

The World Class Manufacturing system is Fiat's adaptation of the Toyota Production System. WCM, as it's called, is designed to root out waste, cut costs, reduce accidents and increase efficiency. Fiat is putting it in place in all Chrysler plants.

As manager of the two Toledo plants, Pino's mission is to improve the quality of the Dodge Nitro and the Jeep Liberty and Wrangler. In Consumer Reports' 2010 ratings, the Nitro and Liberty siblings finished next to last and last in the small-SUV segment. The Wrangler Unlimited was dead last in the mid-sized, two-row-SUV segment. All three vehicles were marked down for fit and finish and reliability.

Pino has much to do, and he must do it fast. "We are in the middle of a tempest," he says, describing the pace of change.

Built like a tight end, Pino is an imposing 6 feet 4, with broad shoulders, dark eyes and a bald head. His sonorous baritone carries over the din of the busy factory floor. He has the stage presence of an actor and frequently refers to himself in the third person.

"That is Mauro -- I have to be the coach of these guys," he says, with a noticeable accent, referring to his role in getting employees to buy into making cars differently.

Pino has been a whirlwind of activity, working to change a culture and convince workers that their future depends on successful implementation of the new system.

The native of Palermo, Sicily, speaks of WCM with the zeal of a missionary: "Non-value-added activities are the enemy of working," he says. "We don't need to pay guys for walking; we need to pay guys for working."

Pino is reducing wasted motion by tactics such as putting kits filled with interior trim parts inside each Wrangler body at the start of the line. That means workers don't have to turn around and walk over to grab parts out of line-side bins.

Some workers have grumbled about some of the changes, but Pino believes he'll convert them.

Major change is particularly challenging in Toledo, because the two factories -- Toledo North (Liberty and Nitro) and Toledo Supplier Park (Wrangler) used to operate under separate plant managers.

The Liberty and Nitro share few components with the Wrangler. Toledo North is a more traditional plant, at which all workers are employees of Chrysler.

Toledo Supplier Park is an experiment born in 2006, when Chrysler was part of DaimlerChrysler. Three suppliers do jobs traditionally done by the automaker: Kuka Toledo Production Operations runs the body shop; Magna Steyr operates the paint shop; and Hyundai Mobis builds the Wrangler chassis. Pino manages only the 1,700 Chrysler employees at the two plants.

Pino has combined the plants into a single management structure, allowing him to streamline the chain of command and move people back and forth, cross-pollinating the plants with new ideas.

Manufacturing expert Ron Harbour, managing partner of the North American office of consulting firm Oliver Wyman, says Toledo is crucial to Fiat's efforts to improve Chrysler manufacturing.

"They had to pick some pilot plants they could rally around," Harbour says. "Toledo was one because it was a consistent moneymaker for them."

Scott Garberding, Chrysler's senior vice president of manufacturing, says Pino "brings a wealth of knowledge with him from Fiat. We recently had an audit, and [the Toledo complex] made a tremendous amount of improvement."

Jay Baron, president of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., says of the new production system: "The first pillar is to empower and engage employees. The Jeep plant has done that."

Pino is "a strong-backbone fellow," Baron says. "A meek person can't run those plants."

Pino won the respect of many UAW members with his work ethic and willingness to collaborate to improve plant conditions, which deteriorated during Chrysler's 2009 bankruptcy. For instance, Pino is working with UAW representatives to improve the food service and restrooms.

Henneman of the UAW credits Pino with being engaged with hourly employees. "You can't understand what's going on on the shop floor unless you talk to people," Henneman says. "And Mr. Pino spends a couple of hours every day out on the shop floor."

Henneman doesn't always agree with Pino's actions, but he admires the way the new boss works.

"He has a polite way of kicking your ass," Henneman says, "He says, 'I always have a smile on my face, but nice things don't always come out of my mouth.'"

Pino, a motorcycle aficionado who owns several bikes, rented a Harley-Davidson Softail in September and rode with 400 workers in a charity event.

"He brought his son and rode on a rainy afternoon, and we thought that was great," says Henneman. "We did it on 9/11, did it for the firemen."

Pino also orchestrated a recognition picnic for employees and their families Oct. 2 with hamburgers and hot dogs for about 5,000 people.

"Those kinds of things mean a lot to us," Henneman says.

The respect between Pino and the union is mutual.

"The union is helping a lot because they're raising the right issues and not just saying, 'I don't like it; I don't want it,'" Pino says. "They're working in a proactive way to elevate the level of behavior of the workers."

Mike Tapley, a 17-year plant veteran and leader of Team 5, which installs windshield assemblies in Wranglers, admits rapid change can be difficult: "It's still new, and people don't like new stuff. It's harder to teach old dogs. But I like it."

Harbour says Pino was "well loved wherever he went" in Fiat's manufacturing system, including his last stop at the Termini Imerese plant in Sicily.

When Pino arrived at Termini Imerese in 2007, the plant had scored only 19 out of 100 points in Fiat's WCM scoring system. A score of 60 is worth a "silver" rating and 80 is "gold," so the plant had a long way to go.

By the time he left, the plant's score had risen to 58, just short of silver but good enough for a "bronze" ranking. (Chrysler now uses the same rating system -- and none of its plants ranks high enough for a bronze.)

Fiat launched WCM in 2006. By the end of 2009, Fiat says it had saved more than $966 million with 44,000 separate projects.

Pino hopes to outdo Fiat in the speed with which he implements the system, learning from Fiat's efforts. "Things are going fast in this complex," he says. "We can be faster than the Fiat plants."

Pino has been a nomad in his work life. He started his Fiat career in 1987. He left Fiat in 2001 to work for the American supplier Eaton Corp., working at plants in Nebraska, North Carolina, Michigan, Mexico, China and Poland. "My life is traveling," he says.

But he returned to Fiat in 2007 after an interview with Sergio Marchionne. Marchionne promised Pino that the Fiat he would return to was much different from the company he had left.

Pino harps constantly on the concept of teamwork in the WCM. And he thinks the workers already get the message: "They can work without Mauro in the shop floor. You saw in their eyes how much they are proud of what they did."