DETROIT -- General Motors has appointed Diana Tremblay, its top manufacturing executive in North America and a seasoned labor negotiator, to help tackle the company's notoriously thick bureaucracy.
Tremblay, 53, today was named vice president of global business services, a newly formed unit that GM says will reduce complexity and save costs by streamlining back-office functions such as human resources and facilities management.
Her reassignment comes as GM is executing one of its busiest-ever vehicle launch schedules in North America, including the rollout of its redesigned full-sized pickups, which began arriving in dealerships this month. GM says it will have replaced 70 percent of its U.S. lineup with new or significantly overhauled vehicles between late 2012 and mid-2014.
GM spokeswoman Katie McBride said the company soon will name a replacement for Tremblay as vice president of manufacturing for North America.
Tremblay will report to GM CFO Dan Ammann.
"Every dollar of efficiency unlocked through Global Business Services is a dollar we can put back into our vehicles for our customers or is a dollar we can take to the bottom line," Ammann said in a statement.
As GM's labor chief in 2007, Tremblay led the negotiating team that forged its 2007 contract with the UAW, a critical pact that allowed GM to offload its retiree health care costs onto an independent trust.
Her appointment, effective July 1, is part of CEO Dan Akerson's ongoing effort to boost GM's profit margins by simplifying global operations and eliminating redundant functions that drive up costs.
For example, GM has been overhauling its accounting and financial-reporting systems to get a clearer picture of its profitability in specific countries and regions.
And Akerson has said that a massive ongoing overhaul of GM's information technology systems, which is moving nearly all IT functions in-house from outside vendors, will cut costs and foster innovation.
The focus on improving back-office performance is part of a broader plan aimed at increasing GM's pretax profit margins to 10 percent, from around 6 percent, which would rival Volkswagen Group, Toyota Motor Corp. and other top players.
Tremblay's new unit eventually will include thousands of employees across finance, human resources, facilities management, real estate and indirect purchasing. The group will manage dozens of common processes across GM that now are done redundantly, with different procedures and computer systems, McBride said.
For example, each of GM divisions now has its own procedures for filing expense reports, paying vendors for services or bringing on board a new employee. Tremblay's group will bring those functions under a common system.
GM says Tremblay's new unit will reduce those expenses by 30 percent over four years. McBride declined to provide a dollar amount.
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