After weeks of rumors, General Motors has confirmed plans to “streamline and restructure” the way it designs and develops products to get them to market sooner.
As part of this effort, Wilmette native Mark Hogan, 50, president of e-GM, has been named group vice president of advance vehicle development, and Wayne Cherry, 64, vice president of GM Design, will handle advance vehicle design. Both will report to Robert Lutz, chairman of GM North America.
The vehicle development team will plan future vehicles and suggest styling themes, and the design team will convert those themes into concept cars for consumers and Lutz to judge. Lutz said the changes will speed the development and design process by several months.
GM also will reduce its 13 vehicle line teams into 11, which will result in some job cuts. GM said the reductions are part of its announced goal of cutting 10 percent of its salaried workforce.
Since joining GM late last year, Lutz has said GM relied too heavily on lengthy market research on designs consumers might like rather than using “gut instinct” to design attractive vehicles for consumers to judge at such venues as private clinics or public auto shows.
