It's been long rumored, but is now confirmed by Toyota that they are going to stop production at their ground breaking NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA.
Toyota will move production to other plants, BusinessWeek reports.
It is a sad day, as NUMMI was the first real proof that Toyota's model would work in the U.S. with American workers. I worked under a fantastic plant manager at GM who had been one of the first American GM managers to learn there… and he learned well. And I learned a lot because of that, about Lean and about leadership and transformational change.
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Mark Graban
Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker who has worked in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. He is author of the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, as well as The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen. His most recent book is the anthology Practicing Lean that benefits the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation, where Mark is a board member. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus. His latest book has been released as an "in-progress" book, titled Measures of Success.
It is indeed a sad day. Was this simply a capacity issue or partially a distribution issue as well? They just finished building a brand new plant in Woodstock, Ontario.
My understanding was that the shutdown was a combination of factors: old factory, Toyota had excess capacity, GM pulled out (that was probably the main factor right there).
I didn’t realize the “new” GM pulled out until I read some of your other links. I would agree that this was likely the main reason.
Thanks