Oshawa Car Assembly

Oshawa Car Assembly is a major manufacturing facility in the city of Oshawa, Ontario, Canada building various automobiles for General Motors Canada. The factory is one of the largest auto plants in the world and has won a number of awards. The plant is part of the larger GM Autoplex, which includes the now closed Oshawa Truck Assembly.

The facility has over 10 million square feet (930,000 m²) of factory floor. It was converted to a state of the art Flexible Manufacturing facility in 2008, which involved the consolidation of two car plants. There are approximately 5,400 hourly employees and 400 salaried employees.

The hourly-rated workers are represented by the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW), Local 222. The plant is currently managed by Dan Hermer; plant staff include Gerry Meek (assistant plant manager), Greg Pratt (Body Shop Plant Manager), Paul McLaughlin (Paint Shop Plant Manager), Darcy Ste. Marie (Trim Plant Manager) and Jeff Bantam (Chassis Plant Manager). The contiguous Stamping Plant is managed by Dan Derlis. The President of CAW Local 222 is Chris Buckley, the GM Shop Committee Chairperson is Greg Moffatt.

Current products include the Chevrolet Impala, Chevrolet Camaro and Chevrolet Equinox. The Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Pontiac Grand Prix were discontinued in June and November 2007 respectively. The Buick LaCrosse was discontinued from Oshawa #2 in 2008 and moved to Fairfax Assembly for 2009. In the fourth quarter of that year, it began producing the new Chevrolet Camaro. Both the Buick Regal and the Camaro Convertible launched on the Flex Line in the first quarter of 2011. The plant began the production of high performance 2012 Camaro ZL1 and the 2012 Buick Regal Gs in 2012 and will build the 2013 Cadillac XTS in the first quarter of 2012.

In August 2010, the plant began producing the Chevrolet Equinox in partnership with another GM facility in Ingersoll Ontario, known as CAMI Automotive. The metal bodies are made at CAMI, trucked two hours east to Oshawa, where they are inserted on the conveyor just before the paint shop. The bodies are painted and then go through the general assembly process at the Oshawa plant. The entire process was developed as quick way to respond to high demand for the Equinox product. The CAMI facility does make Equinox and GMC Terrain from start to finish at their own plant, but they did not have the capacity to put more bodies through paint and general assembly.

The plant won the J.D. Power Gold Award for initial quality in 2006, 2005, 2003, 2002; as well a numerous other individual awards for the specific models it produces. In 2007, the plant won silver for initial quality, and a Gold Best in Segment award for the Pontiac Grand Prix, and Bronze Best in Segment for the Monte Carlo. In all, the plant has won 19 J.D. Power awards for quality since 1999. In recognition of that achievement, J.D. Power awarded the Founder's Award to the Car Plant in the summer of 2008; it is an award that has been presented only six times in the lengthy history of J.D. Power & Associates. Harbour Consulting rated Oshawa #1 (building the Impala and Monte Carlo) as the second most efficient in North America, the top-rated in the study was Oshawa #2 (building the LaCrosse and Grand Prix).