GM creating new global safety organization

NEW YORK — General Motors is creating a new organization within the company to focus on safety across all of its vehicle lines, CEO Mary Barra said Tuesday.

The Global Product Integrity organization will be modeled on a similar group within GM that is centered on product quality.

"We will mirror this approach to focus on safety performance," Barra told the NADA/J.D. Power Automotive Forum in New York. "Our goal is to ensure the highest levels of execution consistently across all our vehicles."

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The new organization will report directly to Mark Reuss, GM's global product development chief, and will incorporate the team under Jeff Boyer, the safety chief recently appointed by Barra.

She says the goal is to "provide the highest levels of safety, quality and customer service … and ensure that a situation like the ignition-switch recall doesn't happen again."

Her appearance on the eve of the New York Auto Show once again put her center stage on a recall that of 2.6 million small cars worldwide for faulty ignition switches. The switches are blamed for 12 deaths in the U.S. and one in Canada, and GM is the target of multiple government investigations.

In a Q&A after her remarks, Barra was asked about why GM quietly upgraded the switch design in 2006 without assigning a new part number and without a recall of earlier vehicles. She said it is "not good engineering" and that future problems will be dealt with as soon as they are evident. While she talked of putting two switch engineers on paid leave last week "while we seek the truth about what happened," she declined to discuss the departure this week of GM's global public relations chief.

She lamented that the recall has overshadowed progress GM has made on other fronts — from sales growth to positive reviews for its new vehicles. But she said GM is committed to the recall! and lauded efforts of GM dealers to go to extra lengths to fix recalled cars and provide customers with loaners.

Although on the job as CEO only months, the debacle has put Barra in a national — if unfavorable — spotlight and made her a target for late-night comedy.

The most personal, perhaps, was an opening skit on NBC's Saturday Night Live a week ago. Barra, a regular SNL watcher, said that she saw the skit. Asked about it, she said, "I think it's important to maintain your sense of humor." Asked to rate how well actress Kate McKinnon captured her, she replied, "There are probably better people than me to judge."