“agile programming” The words “lean” and “agile” have come to mean different things in different settings. There is, for example, lean product development, lean start-ups, agile management, and agile construction. Some of these definitions or methodologies are very specific. In this chapter, I generally use the phrases in their most global sense. However, for more detailed explanations of the various implementations of these philosophies, I recommend Rachna Shah and Peter T. Ward, “Lean Manufacturing: Context, Practice Bundles, and Performance,” Journal of Operations Management 21, no. 2 (2003): 129–49; Jeffrey K. Liker, Becoming Lean: Inside Stories of U.S. Manufacturers (Portland, Ore.: Productivity Press, 1997); J. Ben Naylor, Mohamed M. Naim, and Danny Berry, “Leagility: Integrating the Lean and Agile Manufacturing Paradigms in the Total Supply Chain,” International Journal of Production Economics 62, no. 1 (1999): 107–18; Robert Cecil Martin, Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003); Paul T. Kidd, Agile Manufacturing: Forging New Frontiers (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995); Alistair Cockburn, Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Addison-Wesley, 2006); Pekka Abrahamsson, Outi Salo, and Jussi Ronkainen, Agile Software Development Methods: Review and Analysis (Oulu, Finland: VTT Publications, 2002).
“aphrodisiac in Northern California” Rick Madrid passed away in 2012. For my understanding of Mr. Madrid, NUMMI, and General Motors, I am deeply indebted to Frank Langfitt of National Public Radio, Brian Reed of This American Life, and other reporters from various newspapers and media organizations who were kind enough to share notes and transcripts with me, as well as Madrid’s former colleagues, who shared memories of him. Details on Madrid, including his quotes, draw on a variety of sources, including tapes of interviews with him, notes and transcripts from interviews he gave to other reporters, and recollections of colleagues. In addition, I relied upon Harry Bernstein, “GM Workers Proud of Making the Team,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1987; Clara Germani, “GM-Toyota Venture in California Breaks Tradition, Gets Results,” The Christian Science Monitor, December 21, 1984; Michelle Levander, “The Divided Workplace: Exhibit Traces Battle for Control of Factory,” Chicago Tribune, September 17, 1989; Victor F. Zonana, “Auto Venture at Roadblock: GM-Toyota Fremont Plant Produces Happy Workers, High-Quality Product—and a Glut of Unsold Chevrolet Novas,” Los Angeles Times, December 21, 1987; “NUMMI,” This American Life, WBEZ Chicago, March 26, 2010; Charles O’Reilly III, “New United Motors Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI),” Stanford Business School Case Studies, no. HR-11, December 2, 1998; Maryann Keller, Rude Awakening: The Rise, Fall, and Struggle for Recovery of General Motors (New York: William Morrow, 1989); Joel Smith and William Childs, “Imported from America: Cooperative Labor Relations at New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.,” Industrial Relations Law Journal (1987): 70–81; John Shook, “How to Change a Culture: Lessons from NUMMI,” MIT Sloan Management Review 51, no. 2 (2010): 42–51; Michael Maccoby, “Is There a Best Way to Build a Car?” Harvard Business Review, November 1997; Daniel Roos, James P. Womack, and Daniel Jones, The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production (New York: HarperPerennial, 1991); Jon Gertner, “From 0 to 60 to World Domination,” The New York Times, February 18, 2007; Ceci Connolly, “Toyota Assembly Line Inspires Improvements at Hospital,” The Washington Post, June 3, 2005; Andrew C. Inkpen, “Learning Through Alliances: General Motors and NUMMI,” Strategic Direction 22, no. 2 (2006); Paul Adler, “The ‘Learning Bureaucracy’: New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.” Research in Organizational Behavior 15 (1993); “The End of the Line For GM-Toyota Joint Venture,” All Things Considered, NPR, March 2010; Martin Zimmerman and Ken Basinger, “Toyota Considers Halting Operations at California’s Last Car Plant,” Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2009; Soyoung Kim and Chang-ran Kim, “UPDATE 1—Toyota May Drop U.S. Joint Venture with GM,” Reuters, July 10, 2009; Alan Ohnsman and Kae Inoue, “Toyota Will Shut California Plant in First Closure,” Bloomberg, August 28, 2009; Jeffrey Liker, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003); Steven Spear and H. Kent Bowen, “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System,” Harvard Business Review 77 (1999): 96–108; David Magee, How Toyota Became #1: Leadership Lessons from the World’s Greatest Car Company (New York: Penguin, 2007).
covered his tattoos Keller, Rude Awakening, chapter 6.
the Fremont plant In a statement sent in response to fact-checking questions, a spokesman for Toyota wrote: “Toyota can’t speak to any of the descriptions of the Fremont facility while it operated prior to the independent joint venture with GM. While the broad descriptions of Toyota’s philosophy and certain historical facts are consistent with our approach and understanding of events—such as the use of the andon cord, the trip for former GM workers to Japan and the improvement in product quality following the formation of NUMMI—we are unfortunately unable to confirm or provide any other feedback on the specific accounts you provide. However, we can provide the following statement from the company on the NUMMI joint venture, which you are welcome to use if you so choose: ‘NUMMI was a groundbreaking model of Japan-U.S. industry collaboration, and we are proud of all its considerable achievements. We remain grateful to all of those involved with NUMMI, including the suppliers, the local community and, most of all, the talented team members who have contributed to the success of this pioneering joint venture.’?” In a statement, a spokeswoman for General Motors wrote: “I can’t comment on the specific points you shared re the experience at Fremont and NUMMI in the early 1980s, but I can absolutely confirm that is not the experience in GM plants today….GM’s Global Manufacturing System is a single, common manufacturing system that aligns and engages all employees to use best processes, practices and technologies to eliminate waste throughout the enterprise….While it is true that GMS has its roots in the Toyota Production System (TPS) that was implemented at NUMMI in 1984, many components of GMS grew out of our efforts to benchmark lean manufacturing around the world….While all principles and elements are considered crucial to the successful implementation of GMS, one principle is key to GMS’s adaptability, and that is Continuous Improvement. By engaging our employees, we have seen them use GMS to improve our production systems, ensure a safer work environment and improve product quality for our customers.”
low costs in Japan In a fact-checking email, Jeffrey Liker, who has studied and written extensively about Toyota, wrote: “Toyota realized that to be a global company they needed to set up operations overseas and they had little experience doing it outside of sales. They believed that the Toyota Production System was vital to their success and it was highly dependent on people deeply understanding the philosophy and continuously improving in an environment of trust. They saw NUMMI as a grand experiment to test whether they could make TPS work in the United States with American workers and managers. In fact, in the original agreement with GM they planned on only making Chevy vehicles and when these did not sell because of the negative image of the Chevy brand they brought over the Toyota Corolla. For GM the main attraction was to get some small cars built of good quality profitably and learn how to do this. They seemed to have a passing interest in TPS. For Toyota NUMMI was considered a critical milestone to their future and they studied what was happening every single day to learn as much as they possibly could about operating in the US and developing the Toyota culture overseas.”
prove their assertion right In response to a fact-checking email, Baron wrote: “Our focus was a bit broader than ‘culture.’ We were interested in how founders’ early choices about organizational design and structuring of employment relationships affected the evolution of their nascent enterprises.”