"SUPER LÓPEZ" THE SPANISH ENGINEER WHO HELPED GENERAL MOTORS:
"SUPER LÓPEZ" The Spanish engineer who helped Detroit and General Motors
Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua had flown to Switzerland in order to attend one of the regular meetings that were held on Mondays at the headquarters of Generals Motors Europe in Zurich. Only six months ago he had moved to Detroit Central American company and had already become the key man to settle the accounts of the company.
The year 1992 had served to set the foundation for their success and in 1993 he would see further success.
That day, however, would change his life. Before returning to the United States someone important was waiting at the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport. It was Ferdinand Piëch, who had just been appointed chairman of Volkswagen and had thought of Arriortua Lopez as the right person to help the company overcome difficulties.
The method of "Super-Lopez" to rationalize production systems made him the star of an industrial sector worth billions of pesetas each year.
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The proposal was a bomb: Abandon General Motors to go to Volkswagen.
Between that meeting and the final signing with the German company in March of the following year, there were many circumstances that lead to the Basque engineer´s resignation as the vice president of Volkswagen, causing one of the biggest scandals in the automotive industry.
Three and a half years of war between Generals Motors and Volkswagen, the decision of a judge in Detroit to support and streamline American Consortium demand and falling shares of the German company finally forced the resignation voluntary Arriortua, with an indemnity some sources have come to encrypt at 1,000 million pesetas. In return, Volkswagen expects to make peace with your competitor.
Virtually unknown, the presence of this Basque, born in a small village next to Etxano and Amorebieta, in the headlines has been ongoing since then. First, with his arrival in Detroit as vice president of purchasing on May 1, 1992. Then, with his controversial jump to Volkswagen. And finally, for all legal proceedings in which it has been involved.
Iñaki, is the name by which it is still called in the United States, was born on January 18, 1941. The work of his father, a factory manager in Izar, marked him since childhood, and enrolled in the School of Industrial Engineering of Bilbao when he finished high school.
Seven years later, on June 28, 1966, he left the University Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering. His dream had been to work in the same factory where his father did. However, eventually entering Idom, an engineering company that within a few weeks he spent in Echevarri Laminations. A year later he was offered to move to La Junquera and work on the highway that should unite France and Gerona. He refused because he did not want to leave the village and its surroundings.
The land, which at the end of his long career would appear strongly, marked him.
Thus, began work on Cenemesa, the plant had about twenty kilometers from home and would soon be acquired by Westinghouse. It was there that he began to emerge as a labor organizer, taking into account the abilities of each of the operators felt quickly conquered by him. But this promiscuity with workers too liked the directors of the company and Lopez de Arriortua decided a change of scenery.
His success in Firestone, boosting attendance at international seminars. In one of them, one of General Motors noticed him.
He left Westinghouse and married Margarita Urquiza, Mayor Busturia daughter, whom he had met on the beach. The wedding took place in November 1969 and, after the honeymoon, Iñaki went to work for Firestone, in the development department.
In Firestone learned methods of organization, passed by the Quality Department, and directed the Department of Methods and Standards. With 29 years, got the first patent of tires made by a company in Spain, when designing a tire with "zero lateral force."
In 1972, with the arrival in the general direction of the company Mr. Augustine Tellería, got his big break. Tellería gave a mission for the young engineer Lopez.
The mission was to start working method Bedaux, allowing organize production in a more cost-effective. It was not easy. Employees would not accept timings and did sit-down strike. However, convinced of their ideas, Superlópez solved the problem with a quick direct negotiations with the leaders of the CCOO union still undercover. The popularity he got from Firestone workers made it respected even during the bitter strike of 1975, which lasted three months. The union pickets always led the way to his office Lopez at the factory.
His success in the reorganization of work in Basauri earned her prestige in the global organization Firestone, boosting attendance at seminars and conferences. It must have been in one of these meetings of General Motors when someone noticed him.
In 1979 the leaders of the brand in Spain, who were preparing to launch the Figueruelas factory, was offered the position of director of Industrial Organization. Although the salary almost doubled that winning at Firestone Iñaki refused. Again his attachment to the land. I did not want to leave much less Amorebieta Bilbao, where he had bought a new house he was proud. Neither wanted his three daughters, Irene, Begoña and Maite, to grow up outside the Basque Country. Although the director general of Firestone, Tellería Augustine, although he did not want to lose his partner, honestly advised him to accept, he remained firm in his refusal. It was his father, Jose Lopez Aurrecoetxea, who finally drove him to accept the offer that would mark his life. He began his rise within the U.S. giant.
General Motors Plant- Located on Figueruelas_Spain
The year 1993 had to have been that of his consecration. In late December 1992, General Motors had issued the savings had Superlópez management course for the company in just six months of work.
The U.S. suppliers, who, since his arrival in Detroit six months earlier had shown some opposition to his methods, began to applaud. Gradually, the companies were accepting improvements in their production systems that are proposed by the team of men belonging to Mr. Lopez in exchange for contracts that guaranteed them the exclusive supply of the parts that occur during the lifetime of the vehicle.
Jack Smith_Former CEO General Motors.
Gone was the amazement and protests that had generated the ad, when he was a month as vice president of Worldwide Procurement of all supply contracts that had General Motors were suspended. In some cases supposed break agreements with companies that had always worked for the company, including the companies General Motors itself. This drew criticism and threats that Jack Smith, chief executive of General Motors, stopped one after another.
Protecting Jack Smith cemented the idea that Arriortua Lopez could never leave the U.S. group. Since joining, thanks to the support of Hans Huskes first production director and later president of General Motors Spain, could implement his methods, which were subsequently adopted by General Motors Europe in all its factories and end up turning this subsidiary in the company more efficient automaker in the world.
It was at this time that he met Jack Smith, who had been named president of General Motors Europe.
Man with a reputation for good manager, was trying to sort the European subsidiary, then, generating large losses. He was who did move up. First, to the general direction of Adam Opel AG purchases and subsequently to the European vice area. And when, in March 1992, was elevated to the chief executive of General Motors after the revolution of CEOs, quickly called Detroit, thence to impose its system of work and will bring to Central American chaos.
Ferdinand Piëch Volkswagen_Chairman
However, in late 1992, while filming everything seemed perfectly for Arriortua Lopez in General Motors, he had already had his first contact with Ferdinand Piëch, who had just been appointed successor to the presidency of Volkswagen.
Piëch, then president of Audi, one of the marks of the German group, had met with a desperate situation. The heaviness of the structures of the group in Germany was such that it would be impossible to avoid losses. Well related industries, was Hans Merkle, President of the Board of Bosch, who proposed a meeting with Lopez de Arriortua. The first interview was held at the Sheraton Hotel Frankfurt Airport, using one of the usual Iñaki did travel to Europe to attend the meetings of General Motors.
Although the interview would change his life, Iñaki had not gone to General Motors if they had attended three circumstances. The first was that Margari, his wife, who had adapted well to life in Germany, could not adjust to life in Bloomfield Hill, the Detroit suburb where they live every sector magnates. His family was a certain emptiness after Arriortua decision to suspend the supply contracts. He even received telephone threats. One day, her two dogs woke beheaded.
The second trigger was the abandonment of procedure. At the top of General Motors began to move someone to try to control the growing power of the executive was acquiring. Although a company's organizational chart published by the weekly Automotive News, Superlópez contained in the seventies of the ladder because, actually had more executive ability than most vice presidents who preceded him. Especially since Jack Smith reported directly to the big boss. William Hoghlund, the CFO, had tried to depend on him. A quick call to Smith solved the problem, but Iñaki was left a feeling of bitterness.
Amorebieta Village located on Basque Country_Spain
The third circumstance that led to his departure was the famous plant that wanted to build in the town of Amorebieta. A dream in which Lopez de Arriortua had pawned his prestige. Based on the promises that were made by Jack Smith, Iñaki came to acquire a very serious personal engagement with companies, banking institutions and personalities of the Basque Country with the aim of breaking the trend of companies fleeing their land and factory ride there most advanced automotive world. And he felt betrayed when he learned that the plant was never built in his village.
Personal friend of Xabier Arzalluz, Arriortua know Joseph Alberto Pradera, deputy general of Álava, while still vice president of General Motors Europe and was involved in the concern he expressed it in terms of the industrial future of the Basque Country. So when Lopez began having outlined his project on a new car factory model, thought maybe I could set the pilot plant in the Basque country and more specifically in Amorebieta, where the Basque government already had some land that could be useful.
Iñaki commented the idea of Mr. Pradera who, in a few months, launched a project involving a collaboration funding Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, the Savings Bank of Biscay, the Mondragón Group, Iberdrola, and some companies. All this happened in 1991 when the proposal was presented to General Motors.
Knowing that General Motors would not build a model factory in the town of Amorebieta, Mr. Lopez called Volkswagen furious to accept your job offer. Thus began the war.
Louis Hughes_President for GM Europe
From then until March 8, 1992 there was no more news about the plant Amorebieta. That day, to his astonishment, at the meeting of the company's future strategies, Lou Hughes, with whom he never had a good relationship and who had assumed the presidency of General Motors Europe, announced that the factory had devised the Spanish would be located in a country of Eastern Europe. Knowing that there would be no factory for his people and his friends, who had been appointed Honorary Consul in June 1992, furious, called Ferdinand Piëch to explain that he was determined to change his previous employment, for new life in Wolskswagen.
On March 10, flew to Detroit. Upon arrival he met with Jack Smith to make their decision to leave. But the president of General Motors was not willing to let go easily to your partner. On Friday 12th Lopez visited the home accompanied by Rick Wagoneer and Harry Pearce, the top three executives of the company were defenders of Spanish. They told her they would take care to undo the contract with Volkswagen and Smith offered him the vice presidency of North American operations, which implicitly meant make him the number two in the company.
They failed to change his mind. The next day Jack Smith returned to the charge, accompanied by his wife. Lopez eventually gave in and called to apologize Piëch. It offered one year delay joining Volkswagen. Iñaki accepted.
The following Monday he returned to his office ready to go in General Motors. Revised the speech that announced to the press its continuity and received Harry Pearce, who announced that his appointment had just been approved. But then he made the mistake that turned the Spanish government in a Volkswagen man. He presented for signature a five-year contract. Iñaki refused to sign it and then decided to go home, take your family and fly to Germany.
While traveling to Frankfurt, Francisco Garcia, who just happened to be responsible for purchasing General Motors, he was giving to Harry Pearce a resignation letter addressed to Jack Smith. The next day, Lou Hughes asked Pearce's office to record Arriortua Lopez to verify all documentation was confidential, by his office, drove. They started missing documents. His closest collaborators decided to also spend Volkswagen. And these, in turn, contacted other executives at General Motors continue to offer them in exchange.
All of this situation was afraid at the leaders of General Motors ended by submitting an application to the German Justice. Followed by a new demand for industrial espionage against the prosecution of Darmstadt, after Harry Pearce Arriortua request in writing that he and his colleagues returned the documents in their possession. War began.
Since then, Lopez has been under pressure from the courts in their first decisions you were favorable. General Motors, in view of the slow pace of justice in Germany, decided to take his complaint to the District Court in Detroit, which has shown much more diligently and managed to scare the board of Volkswagen. Its chairman, Klaus Liesen, would agree that ended output forcing the resignation of Lopez.
After three long years of battle, grabbing headlines, Iñaki López de Arriortua has become part of discord. Angel or demon, its working methods have revolutionized the automotive sector, where no one discusses their effectiveness.
The General Motors legal battle against him and his ideas Volkswagen gives the value they actually have. The two auto giants apply its methods and factory model is running, but has never managed to hold it in Amorebieta, next to his house.
