NUMMI was formed in 1984, from the ashes of a plant that GM had closed

in 1982. General Motors reopened the plant, employing many of the same
workers who had staffed, according to the United Auto Workers union, the
former worst performing plant in the US. Employees of the defunct factory
regularly drank on the job, had very high rates of absenteeism, and
performed deliberate acts of anti-QA sabotage, such as putting empty
bottles inside car doors to annoy customers.
GM and Toyota had formed NUMMI as a joint venture to satisfy imperatives
for both companies; GM needed to learn how to manufacture small cars cost
effectively, with high quality standards, and Toyota to learn about producing
cars in the US in the face of changing import laws.
Some of the American workers were sent to Japan to learn the Toyota
Production System , and the results were remarkable. In a massive
turnaround, NUMMI almost immediately began producing vehicles to quality
standards that rivalled the Toyota factories in Japan that they had learnt
from. The emphasis on quality inherent in the TPS, meant that employees
became empowered to do things such as stopping the production line when
they saw a problem, rather than allowing defects to build up and have to be
fixed at a later stage.
Initially, the reemployed workers hated the idea of change, until they started going
to Japan to view Toyotas system at work . They were amazed at how empowered
workers were in the Toyota Production System, and that people were expected to
continuously improve, as a team.
The changed way of working and management, handed the NUMMI workers the
opportunity to build in quality and to be engaged in problem solving and making
improvements.

No Problem is Problem!
The ability to highlight problems and fix the cause without placing blame on
individuals, is a key learning. If fingers are pointed, people will have a

tendency to pass the problem down the (production) line to make sure that
there arent personal repercussions; asking why and not who. The
American culture was, when asked how things were going, to respond No
Problem!. However, the Toyota view was that saying No problem, was a
problem itself. There are always problems, that if solved can spark
improvement.
What happens at NUMMI, stays at NUMMI
When GM tried to take the successes experienced at NUMMI to its other
factories in the USA, it was generally a failure; at least for the first 10-15
years! Initially, GM sent 16 managers to California to start NUMMI, the
Commandos, with the idea that they could go back to other parts of the
company. However, there was no master plan beyond that to extend this to
other parts of such a large and complex organisation.
People at other plants didnt have the same motivation to take on different
ideas as the NUMMI workers had. Its a lot easier to get people to change if
they have lost their jobs and then you offer them back
To make real change, GM managers had to leave the US, and overhaul
operations in Germany and Brazil, in the mid-90s. It took a decade and a
half, a generational transformation, until there was a critical mass of people
sufficient to change the whole of GM. To the point that by the early 2000s,
GM had what they called the Global Manufacturing System.
Collaboration or a Clash of Cultures?
The incumbent culture at GM rewarded seniority; the time that someone
had worked at the plant determining career progression. The team culture of
the TPS clashed with this. Workers had to learn every job on the team and
take turns doing them. Knowledge and sharing learning was important, but
clashed with the entrenched culture, such that it pit worker against worker.

For example, people started pointing fingers about what other people were
doing wrong.
Managers also had their own vested interests (e.g. reward systems based
on the number of vehicles produced, regardless of defects), and miniempires to protect. Smaller perks and privileges such parking spaces, and
cafeteria arrangements, also came into play.
Local Optimisation?
The TPS relies not just on conditions on the factory floor, but also with
their keiretsusuppliers. Keiretsu is a Japanese term referring to a
conglomeration of businesses linked together by cross-shareholdings to
form a robust corporate structure. At NUMMI, Toyota learnt how to adapt to
this to US suppliers, as well as the regulatory framework, and unions.
GMs throw it over the wall nature, meant that improvements in one factory
were stymied by problems in the rest of the company or its suppliers. There
was a destructive relationship with suppliers, but everyone had a place in
the dysfunctional ecosystem, and so it was extremely difficult to affect
change, and improvement.
Added to this, there was no sense of urgency in GM. They went from 47%
US market share in the mid-1970s to 35%, but over a period of a decade. It
was only when they made a $23.5 billion loss in 1992, that the imperative to
change became great enough that an overhaul of the whole company was
attempted. Even then, The cultural gap between NUMMI and the rest of GM
was so vast, that even with clear marching orders to change, some of the
people running the company didnt know where to begin.

Thinking globally, acting locally?

Thinking globally

As discussed previously, its useful to have some Air Support ; top-down

from the management of your organization, enabling you to proceed without
having to waste time and energy fending off detractors. We would hope in
this situation that there is a strategic level to the implementation, so that
the entire system is thought about, not just the the software development
level.
Even if there is support for a team or teams in a company, there is still a
risk of local optimization. For example, companies will often find that
concentrating on customer collaboration is difficult when simultaneously
having to negotiate contracts with 3rd party vendors. You can only get
limited benefit from an agile team that is working within constraints that they
will quickly be limited by.
Acting locally
On the other hand, what if its not a top down implementation? A way
forward is to borrow the act locally, but think globally tenet from the
environmental movement.
Being able to regularly show working, tested software, and to improve
communications with other parts of your organisation, is a good place to
start. Being agile (doing things that add value) instead of Going Agile, is
sometimes the way to go here. The most immediate benefit is that you will
be positively making an improvement on your day to day work, the projects
you work on, and the colleagues you interact with on a daily basis.