From development to the plant, she oversaw Sonic
By Chrissie Thompson, Free Press business writer

January 9, 2011 – Detroit Free Press

At its Orion Township plant, General Motors is trying to do what historically has been impossible: build a tiny, lower priced car with UAW labor and make a profit.

To get there, the automaker is changing all the rules. It reached an agreement with the UAW to have 40% of the plant's workers making half of the UAW's full $28-an-hour wage. And for the first time in its history, GM put one person in charge of both the product development and assembly preparations for the car.

That's why, in the past year, any given day might have found 41-year-old Alicia Boler-Davis in Orion, planning the installation of machinery. Or in Milford, test-driving. Or in Warren, reviewing quality test results.

As the Chevrolet Sonic's North American vehicle line director -- who, generally, oversees a car's content from start to finish -- and vehicle chief engineer, as well as Orion plant manager, Boler-Davis did it all.

GM married the jobs as one more way to try to make the subcompact profitable.

When an automaker is developing a typical vehicle, designers, engineers and plant staff must negotiate to settle their differing objectives: making a vehicle beautiful and safe, as well as making it easy to put together -- all within their respective budgets.

"Wearing the multiple hats is really ideal," Boler-Davis said. "You're looking at the total program ... We were really focused on, no kidding, what can we do to make this a great small car for the customer and then also make sure that we're doing everything we can from a profitability perspective?"

She added, "We don't try to think, 'What's the best for me or what's the easiest thing?' "

Skilled at juggling multiple jobs

Boler-Davis, born in Detroit and raised in Romulus, is no stranger to unusual responsibility -- or to juggling.

When she first became a plant manager in 2007 in Arlington, Texas, she was one of the youngest ever to hold that title at GM. She has navigated promotions while mothering her two sons: Justin, 8, and Dylan, 5. Her mother, Denise Boler, lives in Oakland Township with Boler-Davis and her husband, Fitzgerald Davis, to help care for the boys.

She even acknowledges setting her sights on becoming a senior GM officer one day.

Chevy will debut the Sonic on Monday at the Detroit auto show, kicking off its centennial year and celebrating the big car and truck brand's
renewed emphasis on smaller vehicles. The brand's attempt to get smaller is a transition Boler-Davis understands.

"Having spent two years at Arlington, I love trucks. I love the sport-utility vehicles that we built down there," she said. "Once I had the opportunity to drive the Chevrolet Sonic for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised."

Profit still expected

Boler-Davis declined to say whether the vehicle ill hit its target of making money, but Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, said in October that the car would be profitable within its first life cycle, often five to seven years. The Sonic gets a boost by sharing many of its development costs with GM's other global regions, which will sell the car as the Chevy Aveo, a name that was fairly damaged in North America by the Sonic's poorly regarded predecessor.

She said she's not sure whether GM will combine the roles again in the future. The Sonic worked perfectly because it was an all-new car going into a plant that was idle.

Now that the plant is starting to run -- preproduction Sonics are to start coming down the line this week, Boler-Davis said -- she is relinquishing the product-development side of her job to be in the plant every day. The Sonic is due to launch in the third quarter, and the plant will also build the more-expensive Buick Verano compact, which launches late this year.

But Boler-Davis' challenges haven't ended. Along with monitoring the Sonic's profitability, she now has to bring together a work force that has complained about its unique labor agreement -- especially because some laid-off Orion workers may have to take a pay cut to stay at their home plant.