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'the car plant that could have changed everything'http://www.thisamericanlife.or...nummisounds like a cool show. TAL is good listening. the podcasts are great during work

i'll be listening to it in a bit but from the description below, "...GM sent a generation of managers to NUMMI to learn how to make cars as reliable as Japanese imports, .... Today, GM cars still don't have the quality of Japanese imports,"XDDDD

I love TAL...should be an interesting show!

Just heard the add on the radio station about NUMMI. They also did a small history of the plant yesterday on NPR's afternoon news. How GM failed to spread the NUMMI (Toyota) way of building cars to other plants, and how that contributed to GM's eventual bankruptcy. Very interesting and informative.

GM implemented "the Toyota way" which GM calls "GMS" about 10+ years ago in all assembly plants.

Quote, originally posted by scherry2 »GM implemented "the Toyota way" which GM calls "GMS" about 10+ years ago in all assembly plants. The key there, for "the Toyota way" was-- not implememted soon enough. GMS was years late to the party, not being pushed by management. By the time it was finally implemented through all company factories... and GM was really starting to make a superior product, they had already lost significant market share. Then the economic downturn hit, puting the proverbial screw in the coffin, and voila, we all got to witness a corporate collapse of epic proportion.

Do you work for GM? I do for 30 years.GM's downfall was mismanagement. A bunch of executives that didn't want to spend any money on their product or to the stockholders, but rather give themselves raises. at the assembly plant level "the toyota way" had been implemented totaly years ago. in plenty of time, all the footprints and light curtains and jes/sos boards and 5 man teams, ect. it had nothing to do will "not soon enough.

...here a MILITARY analogy:In war, when a soldier screws up, he gets killed; but, when the officer screws up, all his soldiers get killed.

Yup, got that right.

Listened to it this afternoon. TAL's usually a fantastic show but this was one of the best episodes I've heard. Could be due to the content being close to the heart, I dunno. Fremont in its GM years sounded like a wild place -- drugs, s*x, gambling, and drinkin' on the job. The story about them sending out a Regal with a Monte front end was funny. Then NUMMI took over and things drastically changed, even though they were using a lot of the same workers. It's a shame the story has to end. Almost makes me wish to have the Vibe back (well, not the one I had but any other one. hehehe!)

Quote, originally posted by scherry2 »GM implemented "the Toyota way" which GM calls "GMS" about 10+ years ago in all assembly plants. I'm not arguing your point. I'm in basic agreement. GMS was finally implemented by around 10 years ago across all plants. But, NUMMI started up in 1984, and that's 26 years ago. Toyota had divulged all their production secrets at NUMMI, and GM "learned" how to build a car that didn't cost the company as much money, and still build it with much improved levels of quality. It took a long time for the numb GM management to get the picture. By the time they finally decided to implement GMS around 10 years ago, a lot of other factors had already set the downward slope for GM corporate fortunes that culminated in the 4th biggest bankruptcy in history. They basically wasted about 16 years, that could have been better used building much better cars all around, in every division... instead of just NUMMI. Their management was stuck in the mud, doing what overpaid top office workers do best... Nothing. So their fortunes sunk.

That was an interesting listen, thanks for the link. I was there when they were in there getting soundbites a few weeks ago. I maintain some of the 'driverless robot carts' as they called them. All of a sudden, a few people with recording gear show up and start recording various things, including some of my AGVs as they are called. I didn't bother to ask what they were doing.In that show, they make it sound as if every vehicle that rolls out of that plant is perfect the first time. That is actually far from true. We do have our share of defects, but we do correct all that are found before shipping, and they go through many quality gates. Its nothing like the GM days though. I didn't work there, but I've heard some of the stories. They are consistant with what they said on this program. It was a great place to work, it was even fun to work there at one time. They got very big very quickly. And kind of like Toyota, quality sometimes took a back seat to quantity. Just as the GM plants, NUMMI has its share of managers who go running and yell every time the line is stopped, and if its stopped, it better be for a good reason. Heck, I've witnessed a couple of employees have a heart attack or stroke while they were working on the link and just dropped where they were. That wasn't enough to stop the line though, they just worked around them until medical arrived and took them away. OK I've said enough for now. In general it was a great place to work and I'll miss those I worked with over the years.

finally got to listen to the show. i liked it. does anyone remember the movie 'gung ho' from the 80s? michael keaton was in it, norm from cheers.... come to think about it, its like the first 20 minutes of the TAL episode.

Quote, originally posted by ramenboy... »finally got to listen to the show. i liked it. does anyone remember the movie 'gung ho' from the 80s? michael keaton was in it, norm from cheers.... come to think about it, its like the first 20 minutes of the TAL episode. Haa haa, yea I've got that movie. First time I saw it was when I first got hired at NUMMI. It was required watching as part of our training, along with step aerobics, and many other things. I've since seen it several times in different trainings we have done at the plant and it is in my personal collection. Even though it is a bit old, it does reflect NUMMI and how that plant came to be in many ways.

I have it as well, Gung Ho is a great movie. It's probably in the five dollar bin somewhere, if anyone ever runs across that and hasn't seen it, get it!I noticed the same parallels when listening to TAL.