Hear about GM's failure to learn from Toyota on This American Life

"TractorPillow" (tractorpillow)
07/20/2015 at 09:01 • Filed to: NPR, thisamericanlife, nummi, toyota, gm

Ever wonder why GM took so long to figure out that whole quality thing? If you have a decent commute or if you’re like me and enjoy listening to podcasts instead of rock music when you exercise then check out This American Life’s story about GM and Toyota.

In 1984, Toyota and GM had a joint venture in Van Nuys to open up a new plant: NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.). Toyota showed GM how to make cars with better quality and higher efficiency.

At the time, a GM plant looked like a bunch of drunk uncles slapping car parts together. Toyota offered the key to success, but did GM take it? I get made fun of a lot for how much I enjoy podcasts, but I am pretty sure people on OPPO will enjoy hearing this story - including hearing from some of the GM employees that were actually there at NUMMI.

Take a look (listen?) at NPR’s website for the podcast:

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Or you can do what I do and download it on your phone. Hope you enjoy listening to it; they do a great job of explaining the history in an enjoyable, story-telling fashion.

Toyota Corolla image from automoblog.net - First Toyota Corolla to roll of the NUMMI line.

DISCUSSION (6)

Ratonu13-Proud Daewoo owner, apparently > TractorPillow
07/20/2015 at 10:13

Spent an hour reading it, totally worth it!

TractorPillow > Ratonu13-Proud Daewoo owner, apparently
07/20/2015 at 10:23

Yep, and the funny thing is I learned about this a little in college, but when you hear the people that were there talk about it, it makes it so much more interesting

f86sabre > TractorPillow
07/20/2015 at 10:29

I heard that one. Excellent discussion of what happened.

I love podcasts as well. Midweek Motorsports, Disney Dish, This Week in Tech, Untitled with Adam Savage and Hardcore History are my go toos.

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > TractorPillow
07/20/2015 at 11:05

Ooh I caught part of that on the radio once, it was pretty funny listening to stories of GMs incompetence. They were talking about how they’d have issues like Malibus leaving the factory with Impala bumpers (or similar) and there was a huge lot outside the plant that was just filled with unsaleable, defective cars.

GM ended up actually shipping employees over to Japan by the boatload to observe their assembly lines and learn their way of doing things. Saturn actually started as an experiment for GM to try to apply what they learned from Toyota.

TrickJos > TractorPillow
07/20/2015 at 11:11

I just listened to this one recently. Very interesting story. My cousin owned an ‘88 Nova in high school, which was built at the NUMMI plant. Great car. He drove the shit out of that thing trying to kill it. It never gave up though.

TractorPillow > If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
07/20/2015 at 11:15

Yeah pretty crazy; it’s like if you did something wrong or the part was bad you just tried your best and fastest and sent it to the next guy and it was no longer your problem because you couldnt stop the line.