Fiat Chrysler’s Indiana Transmission Plant I achieves 10 Million ‘Safe’ Hours
An employee works on a nine-speed transmission inside Fiat Chrysler’s Indiana Transmission Plant I…and doesn’t get hurt while doing it
Fiat Chrysler’s Indiana Transmission Plant I, which is run by almost 2,700 hard-working employees, has just achieved a legendary milestone in the world of manufacturing: 10 million “safe hours,” meaning more than three years without a lost time injury.
The employees at the Kokomo, Indiana, plant make safety a top concern, though it’s hard to imagine an employee who is motivated to make his or her working environment intentionally unsafe. This milestone is largely due to the plant’s focus on World Class Manufacturing, which is a “methodology that focuses on reducing waste, increasing productivity, and improving quality in a systematic and organized way.”
“This is something that’s never been done before,” remarked Brian Harlow, Vice President of Manufacturing atFCA North America. “The most important asset of any company is the people who perform the work. This record is a result of the commitment of the ITPI team to doing the right thing to help control and eliminate safety hazards identified in the workplace. It is this teamwork that helped achieve the seemingly impossible.”
The Indiana Transmission Plant I has been producing for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (previously Chrysler Group) since back in 1998. The plant is responsible for producing the six-speed transmission, but it was also notably the first facility to produce the lauded nine-speed transmission that makes the Jeep Cherokee so efficient. In the last two years, the plant has made more than 500,000 of these transmissions.
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