Word: toyotas
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...Toyota's task within the joint venture was to implant its efficient, low- cost production system in GM's Fremont factory. GM is represented by 17 management-level employees at NUMMI, while Toyota has 36, including the president and executive vice president. One of the first things the Japanese did was eliminate executive perks such as reserved parking places and a separate cafeteria. Then they turned the top-down style of American management -- the tradition of the industrial engineer as the first and last word on how a car is made -- on its head. As NUMMI president Kan Higashi says...
Since NUMMI was established, every one of its 2,500 employees has had hundreds of hours of training. Nearly 500 of them were sent to Toyota City in Japan. They are not learning how to make cars. They are being taught how to work together more efficiently. More kaizens, less muda. "NUMMI is different," says assembly-line inspector Martha Gendel, "because the worker is being treated differently...
While the NUMMI plant is considered better than some Japanese factories in Japan, it is still less efficient than Toyota City. The team leaders who were sent to Japan took one look at the "young wiry kids" working at 350 m.p.h. on the line and said...
...have learned something from the Americans. "It is more cheerful here than in Japan," says he. "It's phenomenal." Executive vice president Osamu Kimura feels this is a valuable lesson. "Current way is not good one. We need more dynamic, creative society. So we tell our colleagues here from Toyota City to work hard and enjoy California. Almost all people enjoy suggestion...
NUMMI's influence on the lives of its people has been immense. NUMMI's influence on the auto industry has been more limited. It is not yet a profitable business, at least partly because of competitive tension between GM and Toyota at the corporate level. Although GM has sent thousands of visitors through NUMMI, the reactions to it "vary plant by plant," according to GM's highest-ranking executive at NUMMI, John Arle. "GM is a big ship to turn around...