and I'm here to talk about something
that I found just recently and this is a
commemorative mug dedicated to Quality
for the Chrysler Technology Center
October 1991 Advantage Chrysler and that
brings up the story of how the CTC was
created so let's talk about that for a
bit nobody expected Chrysler to be able
to build this kind of an edifice this
kind of a setup with Testing
Laboratories and at a late time in its
development uh sort of enforcement of
the cross functional team approach that
they were adopting then which they
called platform teams because it was a
bunch of people from different functions
would get together to develop a new
platform or in reality a new car on a
new platform so they had one of these
for the Vipers many say that that was
the test of the idea and keep in mind
that this was the same idea that AMC had
used for many many years because they
didn't have enough people to have
specializations in you know to the point
that Chrysler did they didn't have a big
enough product line they weren't doing
enough product development they couldn't
keep it going Honda though also did
cross functional teams you could really
argue that even before the first Skunk
Works incidentally the original Chrysler
team The Three
Musketeers of zader BR and skeleton not
in that order uh actually worked on a
cross functional team basis and that
they actually really did do what
Chrysler would later call a platform
team to create the first Chrysler so the
Chrysler Technology Center was pitched
by Executives engineers and Architects
and they all work together on it in what
John Roberts who was with the project
from start to finish actually called a
platform team approach in its own three
people were involved originally Jack
Leon from facilities who uh he credited
with being the father of the whole
project Gary derer I might be saying
that wrong from facilities and John
Roberts himself so they started out in
plant 4 of Highland Park in an abandoned
bathroom before the project got its own
real digs in 1983 the first formal
engineering team was made up of Bob zenf
Felder and John Roberts and reported to
the head of engineering Bob Sinclair who
incidentally Bob Sinclair had run the
the valant team which was the first
modernday platform team or cross
functional team approach within Chrysler
the Valiant was a major runaway success
across the entire world the Valiant was
successful but after that Bobs and cl
refused to ever go back and use it again
until the CTC itself irland Park was
Chrysler's World
Headquarters from before it was founded
in 1925 it was where the first Chrysler
was developed so what they did was they
set up their guidelines and what they
called Black Books not the British TV
show but books of guidelines and the
first one was done in 1985 22 different
approaches had been uh examined now for
the center's development they then
looked at four approaches Roaches for
further uh refinement so they originally
planned to spend about $500 million on
this move move the engineering over but
leave the dino cells where they tested
engines and leave the headquarters
behind especially and I can imagine that
this would have been a very freeing
experience for the engineers involved on
the project but Bob Sinclair at
engineering and some others within
engineering they really really wanted
all of engineering to move over
including state-of-the-art Test
Facilities and they also deserve credit
for that because that's exactly what
happened there and without those
state-of-the-art Test Facilities
probably Chrysler's Resurgence in the
1990s would not have happened or it
would have looked very different and not
as good that that included pretty much
everything that was there that plan as
of 1985 other than a fullscale acoustic
wind tunnel and that was a great thing
to have this was one way that they could
catch up and surpass competitors so the
team working on the CTC grew to several
hundred people including engineering
manufacturing purchasing and finance as
you'd expect hundreds of people had to
be a standalone team to work cross
functionally and get it done and without
that setup it probably never would have
happened or at least it would not have
looked as good as it did in mid 1988 the
board approved a $1.6 billion new budget
for the program because it had expanded
quite a bit as you can
see uh and at that point the development
team moved to Auburn Hills now keep in
mind that in 1987 chryler bought
American Motors and so they were already
planning this headquarters when they
bought AMC but uh it really came in very
handy after they had AMC because that's
when all the stuff about cross
functional teams actually developing
cars came to pass and that's when
franois cin came over and took over as
head of engineering and he was very very
much into Innovation he did not stand
still and let the grass grow under his
feet we will all Miss franois castang
and his influence on uh what was then
Chrysler what is now FCA us or stantis
depending on how Global you want your
view to be Now Lea aoka retired in 1992
and by then the cross functional teams
were already at work and they were doing
their thing in the new CTC and then they
they uh commissioned more things they
had the full scale Aero acoustic wind
tunnel uh completed in 1999 and this is
after Daimler took over but it was
planned in the late 80s and early 90s so
it's pretty impressive really that the
building was still being put
together now uh John Roberts wanted to
give credit to uh the people that I've
mentioned as well as Chris Theodore who
optimized the use of the facilities as
they went up so Chris Theodor was one of
the people on the team who emphasized
that cars had to be built in a uh cross
functional approach where you had people
from different parts of of engineering
and people from manufacturing and people
from electronics and all that you have
to have everybody working together so
that you get an integrated system
because a car is not a bunch of parts
it's a system of parts and the better
they work together the better the car
and it's kind of funny but you know it's
like the airflow uh was one of the first
cars where the front and rear suspension
was designed to work in
harmony that hadn't really been thought
of before and then you end up in the 60s
you still have front suspension and rear
suspension designed by different people
and that is what the CTC helped to do uh
they probably would have had a much
harder time switching to the cross
functional team approach platform team
approach if they had had to stay in the
Highland Park engineering offices where
you might have to go to a different
building or at least a different floor
if you were say uh a a mechanical
engineer and you needed an electronic
engineer or an electrical engineer if
you are working on uh the suspension and
you wanted to talk to the guy who's
designing the front
suspension and if you read the stories
about the Valiant development you find
that there were a lot of areas where
just being in the same room solved
problems and the same was true you can
find in my Viper
book stories about well I was working on
this and the guy next to me heard me
saying this and he said well you know I
have a solution for you so there's a lot
of problems that get solved if people
are in the same room or at least in in
the same general area and Chris Theodore
said and I wish I had still had the
audio for this that the only bad part of
the facility was that the executives in
Highland Park who were at the old
headquarters they got very lonely down
there and they got envious and so Bob
Eden then the CEO and the other leaders
decided they had to move to the Chrysler
Technology Center and that required
building on the headquarters Tower uh
which is the one with the great big
pentar belt in that supposedly diimler
tried to have removed oror also
mentioned he thought that leuka was was
kind of nuts to be wasting money like
that at the time when the company was in
uh rough times but it turned out quote
to be one of the greatest enablers to
creating the team's cultural change uh
this mug which I've had set aside for
the life me I can't recall who gave it
to me I wish I could um it was Christ
glor's Advantage it helped them to
become a state-ofthe-art company it
helped them and you know I realized that
for some of you especially the younger
viewers you you think of
Chrysler it's very different now in 2024
than it was in the early and mid 90s and
in the late '90s Chrysler was at one
point making what critics called the
best cars in their class uh they were
doing it well they were creating new
spaces they were getting new ideas out
um they
revitalized the large car the large
sedan segment which was just about dead
when they came out with the Intrepid the
New Yorker the Concord the Eagle Vision
uh that group of cars Revitalize the
segment you would not have believed the
difference between something like the
Plymouth Sundance which they lost
thousands of dollars on every one that
they sold three or $4,000 on each one
maybe in even $5,000 and this was a car
that uh that you could buy for
$8,000 and then they replaced that the
neon which was the best in its class in
performance by
far and cost a little bit more but they
made a profit of thousands of dollars
even with the warranty problems that
they had with that car due to uh Bob
Eden reportedly allegedly cheaping out
on the design even with those warranty
costs taken into account the Neon made
money as a small car that was
revolutionary for an American maker at
the time so Chrysler used to be a
serious autom maker that people really
respected and took seriously not that
long ago and yes that did all end when
they merged with Daimler um part of it
was damage to the reputation from all
the journalists saying oh that's good
we'll mix up Chrysler's styling which
wasn't their main point although they
were good at it uh with daimler's
engineering and quality and at the time
Chrysler was trouncing diimler in
long-term durability and quality study
so it's a sad story what happened to
Chrysler but parts of Chrysler's history
are really what's the word inspiring and
it can tell you what to do and in this
case you had this company that looked
like it was dying in the late
80s and they put their money and their
time and their effort into this new
facility and it did give them a new
lease on life along with the new
processes that it helped along and it
and chry was reborn until
1998 so I'm Dave from motels I hope that
you'll come back for more