GE Transportation used to be a very good company that made lots of money making locomotives for decades in Erie, PA.
Then they decided to move out of Erie and spent a fortune building new factories in Texas and India. In Texas, they have to compete for high labor with all the refineries and chemical plants instead of in Erie where there was a stable work force.
Now these new factories cant make money because their costs are too high and utilization factors very low. Operating at low utilization factors can easily make unit costs per locomotive go up by 40% or more, and with long supply lines for material unlike making parts in Erie, total unit cost increase can be over 50% or more.
Now because they cant make money in Transportation with the new structure instead of staying in Erie, GE wants to sell the business. When they do that, GE parent company will have less cash flow and income.
What happened at Erie Transportation is exactly what has happened in Power and other traditional GE businesses. Fake cost savings big changes promoted by new inexperienced managers has destroyed GE cost structure. No old type GE manager would have done such bad moves because they knew better.
The problem is GE management that doesn't know the business and now GE management itself.
GE has destroyed itself from within, even though we hear all sorts of lame management excuses and that just cuts across the board will fix it
Its all a GE six sigma fanatasy.