Im doing a presentation for my Organizational Behavior class and my group is comparing GM to toyota for various aspects of knowledge management.

anyways i came across this while searching for NUMMI successes/failures and thought it brought up a pretty interesting point

http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/bl...about_thi.html

 

Interesting article. NUMMI builds the Vibe/Matrix now, and IIRC, Red Planet said that the Vibe was the poorest ranked GM car in terms of quality. Even lower than the Matrix. I bet you could take all of the Toyota badged NUMMI car quality rankings and they would be ranked higher than their GM NUMMI counterparts. That GM badge must be made out of kryptonite.

 

actually i dug into that a little bit deeper (i was thinking the same thing) and found out the matrix is built in Ontario. Although there is the Vibe rebranded as a Toyota Voltz sold here in Japan. Even have the pontiac arrow shape on the front but Toyota filled it in with their own emblem (every different model has its own logo/emblem) in japan

 

where is the vibe built?

 

Vibe is built at NUMMI in fresno, California

 

Just a small correction. NUMMI is in Fremont, CA http://www.nummi.com/

 

I spent a summer at a Japanese tier-2 automotive component manufacturer (plastic injection molding and wiring harnessess) and safety was paramount. They had all sorts of ispectors and daily walk-thru's. Safety did however take a back seat to meeting deadlines and deliverables. I was expected to work a minimum of 10hrs per weekday and 8hrs on Saturday. I banked overtime but DAMN was I tired and I was 22 at the time. Forklifts running into things, hell people running into things was not uncommon at all. You push people to their limits and accidents will happen in any endeavor.

I hated that job BTW.

 

Its funny you mention that because when I was in Tokyo (Harajuku) last summer I saw a Voltz. It really had me stumped due to the Pontiac clading and arrow head. I thought that maybe some kid had a Vibe body kit put on it or something.