NUMMI is Revived - is Toyota?
21 May 2010
25 years ago Toyota and GM entered into a joint venture to produce small cars together. For GM it was an opportunity to learn about Toyota's produ…
GM Learns From the Government... Unfortunately
24 April 2010
I guess we should have suspected it: GM didn't receive just a few billion in bailout funds from the government. It also received some knowledge of…
Still Blind - The GM Taxpayer Fleecing Continues
6 March 2010
Nearly a year ago Bill told you how GM's plan to reduce its dealer network was just a fraction of what needed to be done. At the time GM had 6,300…
Andons and Problems at NUMMI
11 February 2010
Interesting article by John Shook in the latest MIT Sloan Review on the culture at NUMMI. The GM-Toyota joint venture let Toyota experiment with apply…
Toyota's Shop Floor Still Remembers
8 February 2010
While Toyota executives are scurrying around having lost their way, the employees at their factories are doing what Toyota does best: improving. For…
Toyota Pulls the Big Andon Cord, Finally
26 January 2010
By Kevin Meyer Toyota just announced that it was suspending sales of eight of its most popular models while it investigates the accelerator pedal sti…
The Cascading Cost of Rehiring
19 January 2010
A couple of recent stories on the same topic but from different angles really helps point out the cost of laying off. First Richard McCormack at Manuf…
A Rube Goldberg Creation of Rare Perversity
16 January 2010
Obviously with that kind of title I can only mean the insanity created, again, when the free market force of nature meets skewed politically-induced r…