With years of consistent and steady improvement, Chrysler has climbed all the way into a tie for first place in the 2008 Harbour Report, the benchmark study measuring manufacturing productivity.

In the 2008 study, Chrysler’s hours per vehicle improved by 7.7 percent, the best of any manufacturer, to 30.37 hours per vehicle.

Since 2001, productivity has improved by an industry-best 31.4 percent, cutting fourteen hours out of the average time it takes to assemble a vehicle, including its major components.

The best-performing assembly plant in North America in the 2008 Harbour Report is Chrysler’s Toledo (South) Supplier Park, which builds the Jeep Wrangler, Wrangler Unlimited, with an average time of 13.57 hours per vehicle. And the top engine plant is the Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance, with an average time of 1.84 hours per engine.

Who better to talk about Chrysler’s results than Ron Harbour, president of Harbour Consulting.

“I think the positive thing, when I look at it over the years is that not only has Chrysler made consistent improvements, but even with the improvement that they’ve made, they’re still very much in the early phases of that improvement,” Harbour said in an interview with TheFirehouse.

“I think the positive is that when I look forward, I expect to see an acceleration of that improvement over the next couple of years, because of the foundation that’s been built. That is leaner plants, more efficient plants, better designs, first time quality. Those kinds of things have set a foundation that can allow this company to make even more significant improvement over the next couple of years. I’d be surprised if they didn’t.”