Story of the recently closed GM Nummi plant..

[bobola]

This American Life on NPR, devoted 60 minutes to telling the story.

Toyota wants to open a plant in the US, and GM wants to learn how the secrets of Japanese car building success, so they form a joint partnership at Nummi and each build their own cars in the same place.

The description of how the union operates in the plant is fascinating. One union guy filled up a thermos with booze every morning and drank it through the day. Easy to understand where the term 'lemon' came from.

The sad part of the story is how GM failed to use what they learned from Toyota.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ (stream episode link)

[Minion]

Re: Story of the recently closed GM Nummi plant..

Many MANY companies want to be like Toyota. Lean manufacturing is the prevailing religion in what little is left of USA's factories. In several cases I've seen, management at a plant wants to make their factory floor look lean without changing their own leadership style, which is the root cause of their quality problems. This shows the greater mind set of our entire country: We're the best, we are a superpower, we control the world, we don't need to change.

In the link, the key to change was being humbled first. People have to lose what they take for granted before they will re-evaluate their attitude toward it.

(Yes I'm a manufacturing minion stuck in the middle)

[metalman]

Re: Story of the recently closed GM Nummi plant..

Many MANY companies want to be like Toyota. Lean manufacturing is the prevailing religion in what little is left of USA's factories. In several cases I've seen, management at a plant wants to make their factory floor look lean without changing their own leadership style, which is the root cause of their quality problems. This shows the greater mind set of our entire country: We're the best, we are a superpower, we control the world, we don't need to change.

In the link, the key to change was being humbled first. People have to lose what they take for granted before they will re-evaluate their attitude toward it.

(Yes I'm a manufacturing minion stuck in the middle)

we are all minions now. welcome!

[Fiat Currency]

Re: Story of the recently closed GM Nummi plant..

(Yes I'm a manufacturing minion stuck in the middle)

Welcome. It's good to see that somebody's still making something for an actual living.

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[CanuckinTX]

Re: Story of the recently closed GM Nummi plant..

Nothing about the closing of the NUMMI plant surprises me.

I worked as a consultant at the NUMMI plant for over a year back in the late 90's installing an ERP package. Most of my customers were around from the days when it was just a GM plant. The stories they told me blew my mind.

I guess back in the 'good ole days' there was a place in the plant for everything. If you were in the know, there was a place to buy drugs, a spot to buy stolen items, the right people who could arrange sex, etc.

On Friday nights the parking lots would turn into a huge party and prostitutes would roll up in RV's to set up shop. By Monday morning I guess the parking lots were just littered with trash and smashed bottles.

It wasn't just a myth to not buy a car manufactured on a Friday or a Monday - there was real depraved people that made that a truism. So much of that mentality was still pervasive inside the plant even by the late 90's. The staunch union members never really left the earlier decades in their minds.

[Minion]

Re: Story of the recently closed GM Nummi plant..

Welcome. It's good to see that somebody's still making something for an actual living.

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Thanks. I've lurked here since the housing bust. I had just graduating at the time. None of my friends believed it could happen. The same scent is in the air over USA, inc. Debt to income, P/E, fundamentals, etc are all off.

I don't really make things, I manipulate others to do it better. Some times in a pinch I step in and show them how, but rarely. Even engineering is a bit of a leveraged profession (we depend on the labor of others to generate our income).