Management: Crackdown in Milwaukee

For years, American Motors Corp.'s Milwaukee body plant has been notorious as the most inefficient of the company's four U.S. auto plants. On its assembly line, workers lounged uninterestedly amid the sheet metal, amused themselves with such pranks as exploding firecrackers with their welding torches. A few regularly drank on the job, putting away so much of Milwaukee's famous beer that on occasion they tried to turn out eight-door Ramblers. As the shenanigans mounted, body shipments to A.M.C.'s hard-working final assembly plant at Kenosha, Wis., dwindled—so much so that in recent...