Inter-Firm Lean Production in Mexico: Coordinated Industrial Relations in General Motors? Silao Supply Chain.

This paper explores the industrial relations regime created by General Motors and their suppliers, and its contribution to the system of lean production practiced in the automakers newest greenfield site in Silao, Mexico. In particular, it examines the strategies by which the firms link human resource policies to their production processes to achieve low turnover, facilitating the identification of the firms as pursuing either low or high turnover strategies. In so doing, GM?s wire harness supplier is exposed as pursuing human resource policies that appear counterproductive to its own efficiency, but are logical within the context of the industrial relations needs of the supply chain as a whole, lending credence to the claim that the plants are practicing a form of inter-firm lean production reaggragating the parts of the production process that General Motors previously shed in its drive toward leaner production. The paper is based on plant tours and interviews at each of the plants during a six month period in 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]