EoW November 2008

The reactivated plant will build about 215,000 engines a year and employ some 500 people. Production could grow, the Canadian government said, to a level that

would “create or sustain” 757 jobs. Elsewhere in automotive . . .

General Motors has said it will spend $500 million on production of a compact car ❈ ❈ that is a critical element in its effort to return to profitability. Some $350 million of that will go toward retooling the Detroit auto giant’s Lordstown plant, in Ohio, to turn out the new car. Lordstown opened 42 years ago and is the highest-volume plant in the world with a single assembly line. Responding to a collapsing market for big trucks and sport utility vehicles, GM is closing four North American truck plants and resting its hopes on the Cruze, which promises to go 46 miles on a gallon of gasoline. The new compact was introduced at the Paris Motor Show in October. It will go on sale in Europe and Asia in 2009, a year before its North American debut.

Energy

‘American small businesses are not prepared for power outages’

According to the results of a recent survey commissioned by a unit of Emerson Electric Co (St Louis, Missouri), the small business owners of the US will be very much in the dark if the lights go out. Emerson Network Power released its findings in conjunction with the fifth anniversary of the Great Blackout, which began on 14 th August, 2003. The largest power outage in North American history left 50 million people in the North-eastern United States and Canada in the dark – some for days – and cost the economy an estimated $6 billion in productivity. Statistics published by Emerson in August 2008 include these: of the small business decision-makers surveyed, 79% experienced at least one ❈ ❈ power outage in 2007 of the small businesses that experienced outages in 2007, 42% had to close down ❈ ❈ during the longest spells without power some 67% of respondents expected to experience outages again over the next ❈ ❈ 12 months while small business owners consider power outages a greater threat than fire, ❈ ❈ weather damage, theft, employee turnover, and government regulation, only 39% of them have back-up power systems, leaving 61% vulnerable to the negative business impacts of outages “Keeping the lights on, the computers running, and employees working during a power outage is important for any business, but particularly for small businesses,” said Ed Feeney, head of the Emerson Network Power systems business, which provides back-up power technologies. “Their margin for error is thinner and the competition’s tighter, so even a brief outage can do significant harm.” An independent authority – Steve Strauss, nationally syndicated business columnist and author of The Small Business Bible – commented, “Emerson’s survey findings are alarming, considering that more than 99% of all American businesses are small businesses, with these companies generating 45% of the total US payroll. It is critical that small enterprises have a business-continuity plan that includes back-up power systems to keep the business running when the main power source goes down.” Dorothy Fabian USA Editor

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EuroWire – November 2008