A car factory that came back to life twice (6)

Thirteen

In March 1983, Toyota and General Motors signed an agreement to establish a new United Automobile Manufacturing Company in California to jointly produce a new car and compete with General Motors. Chevrolet Nova brand, distributed by Chevrolet sales network. NUMMI? has its own board of directors, with half and half members, and the president and key management personnel are appointed by Toyota.

President Eiji Toyoda of Toyota Motor Industry and Chairman Smith of General Motors signed a memorandum of cooperation in 1983.

According to the agreement between the two companies: the registered capital of US$300 million is half of the total, The factory provided by GM was worth $130 million, so only another $20 million was needed; the investment included the construction of a body stamping plant and factory modifications. Half of the supporting parts are manufactured in the United States, and the other half, including engines, transmission systems and other parts, will be imported from Japan. The new factory will require 3,000 workers and the parts will create 9,000 jobs in the United States and Japan.

Profits are also split in half, but GM pays Toyota 2.5% of the intellectual property fee for each vehicle.

This deal also brings some benefits to GM. It is estimated that GM would have to independently invest US$1.5 billion, which would take three years, to develop a new production line. Toyota's manufacturing technology and processes can reduce GM's overall assembly costs.

The special thing about the New United Automobile Manufacturing Company is that it is a cooperation between two competitors. The two parties to the joint venture were two giants in the automobile industry at that time. Someone commented: "Although my parents are rich, But the new United Automobile Manufacturing Company is a poor boy with inherent shortcomings. General Motors used the worst factory equipment that closed down two years ago, while Toyota invested US$100 million to recruit workers who lost their jobs due to the closure of the original factory. , a group of veterans broke the gun and started production in 1984. "

"World" magazine reported: After the news of the establishment of a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota Motor, there was a lot of discussion in the American public opinion circles. The industry was outraged, accusing the two giants of violating U.S. antitrust laws by working together.

Due to concerns about antitrust and unfair competition, this special joint venture also attracted an investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, while the other two U.S. auto giants Ford and Chrysler "don't rub sand in their eyes." , suing GM and Toyota against the U.S. government.

Iacocca is the loudest voice among the opposition. He accuses GM of trying to establish a monopoly in the small car market by cooperating with Toyota, which seriously endangers the survival of other car companies and has violated the U.S. Anti-Japanese War. "Monopoly Law", he said: "It is very bad for General Motors and Toyota to join forces. They will become the most powerful automobile alliance in the world and will also have serious long-term effects on the U.S. automobile market. Once the two major automobile giants join forces, they will control 25% of the world. % of the automobile market.” In order to gain the support of the American public, he also gave a speech on TV with an angry look on the screen: “The collusion between General Motors and Japan’s Toyota will lead to a significant reduction in employment opportunities for American workers!”< /p>

Ford Chairman Caldwell said: "Yes, the Japanese have rehired some original GM workers. But Japanese factories have always strived for the highest efficiency with the least manpower. If this kind of Japanese-style factory becomes more and more The more we do, the more our civilized life will be ruined!”

Iacocca dragged Honda out again to slander, accusing the Japanese of serious racial discrimination because Honda built a factory in Marysville, Ohio! At that time, it was announced that "only applications from residents within a 30-mile radius will be accepted." In fact, Honda was only worried about too many applicants at the time, but Iacocca said: "This distance extends another ?5? miles, which is the black area of ????Columbus. The purpose of the Japanese is really clear!"

Lie down and shoot! Unfortunately, the number of black employees in Honda's car manufacturing plants only accounts for ?3%. In order to avoid the trouble of racism, Honda Soichiro quickly ordered to increase the employment ratio of non-white workers.

Some economists even believe that for every job created by a new company, two jobs will be lost elsewhere. They reasoned based on an assumption: Half of the parts of the new cars jointly produced by General Motors and Toyota will be made by American workers, while 90% of the parts of other American car companies are made by American workers. If the new American-Asian hybrid car sells one and takes away the others In the U.S. auto business, two auto workers from other companies may lose their jobs.

The siege lasted for more than a year, and Eiji Toyoda had to step forward to host a press conference. He believed: "In terms of strength, American automobile manufacturers still far exceed Japanese manufacturers. The three major American automobile companies Its strength is still extremely strong. According to "Happiness" magazine, Toyota has become the third largest automobile manufacturing company in the world after General Motors and Ford. However, it can be seen from the figures that the gap between Toyota and the previous one is very large. Chrysler, which almost went bankrupt a few years ago, had much more profit than Toyota in 1984."

General Motors Chairman Roger Smith was almost "physically and mentally exhausted", and even his friends and family accused him of abandoning small cars. development was handed over to the Japanese. Under pressure, he offered generous terms and settled out of court with Chrysler. Iacocca quietly withdrew the lawsuit after benefiting from it (he also had to withdraw the lawsuit because Chrysler also established a joint venture with Mitsubishi Motors).

What happened next was a historic coincidence: the factories of the two joint ventures of General Motors and Toyota, and Chrysler and Mitsubishi, eventually became factories of new energy vehicle companies.

In 2017, media reported that Rivian Automobile in the United States had acquired a factory in Normal, Illinois. Mitsubishi and Chrysler established this factory as a joint venture in 1985. It covers an area of ??500 acres and has a production capacity of About 250,000 vehicles. After Chrysler withdrew, the plant was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi and was responsible for producing Outlander. In 2015, Mitsubishi announced the closure of the plant.

Rivian Automobile is headquartered in Detroit, USA. The company began manufacturing cars in 2019. At the same time, Rivian Auto will receive a $1 million grant and a five-year tax break from the state government. The media believes: It can be seen that Rivian’s strategy is similar to Tesla’s.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission finally approved the joint venture project between General Motors and Toyota, but limited the production to no more than 250,000 vehicles and the joint venture period to a maximum of 12 years. These restrictions were not lifted until 1993.

Fourteen

Toyoda Shoichiro appointed Tatsuro Toyoda as the first president of NUMMI.

Tatsuro Toyoda was educated in the United States. He speaks fluent English and is familiar with American customs. He has also worked in Toyota's sales department for a long time and is good at dealing with people.

Tatsuro Toyoda

As soon as the new United Automobile Company began to be established, the UAW asked Toyota to hire 5,000 of Fremont's original employees.

Tatsuro Toyoda is naturally very reluctant, but Tatsuro Toyoda knows that the UAW is powerful and does not want Toyota to have a head-on conflict with it before Toyota has a stable foothold. After much deliberation, he reported to Toyota headquarters: The original workers in Fremont had lost their jobs due to the closing of the factory. They were all very eager to get jobs. If done correctly, hiring them would gain Toyota's reputation and save a lot of money. Training costs a lot, after all, these workers have many years of experience in automobile manufacturing.

After careful study, Shoichiro Toyoda authorized Tatsuro Toyoda to handle the matter with full authority, but required him to report every step to the headquarters, and repeatedly told him to handle the relationship with the union.

Eiji Toyoda was also worried that Tatsuro Toyoda would not fully understand the headquarters’ intentions, so he visited California several times to receive information in person.

The Japanese have always been patient enough in dealing with things. Tatsuro Toyoda adopted the attitude of fighting a protracted war, saying that most of the original workers can be rehired, but the union should fully respect Japanese management and let the Japanese Party assesses and selects workers. He clearly hinted that NUMMI would not accept leaders of the labor movement because complete "obedience" was the key to the success of the Toyota Production System.

For the sake of thousands of workers’ jobs, the United Automobile Workers Union was forced to agree to all Tatsuro Toyoda’s conditions.

The actual selection process was far less harsh than the union expected. Even some old workers were accepted, but only the leaders of Fremont's previous troubles were confiscated, even though there were many young, strong, and strong workers among them. A person with strong technical skills. It seems that what Toyota values ??most is "obedience".

After the recruitment work is completed, the company issues each worker a copy of the company's work rules. After repeated deliberation by experts such as Taiichi Ohno before the introduction of this code, the NUMMI Code*** has seven basic principles:

1. Improve, continue to improve, and never-ending pursuit of perfection.

2. Kanban, through JIT (just-in-time production method, no inventory production method, zero inventory, one flow, or supermarket production method).

3. Give full play to human potential.

4. Establish mutual trust between labor and management.

5. Carry forward the spirit of unity and achieve team effect.

6. Treat all employees as partners.

7. The company provides a stable life for all employees.

At NUMMI, Toyota managers do not have dedicated parking spaces or dedicated restaurants. They queue up in the same restaurant as the workers to eat. This surprised even Americans who value "equality" because GM's top managers enjoy corresponding privileges. Tatsuro Toyoda's intention is to prove to employees through this type of specific "little things" that workers and managers receive the same respect at NUMMI. This move really won the favor of the workers.

Because they were worried that American workers would not be willing to work for the Japanese, the Japanese managers in the country, who had a clear hierarchy, had a relatively mild attitude towards the workers. However, the requirements are quite strict once entering the workshop: workers work in groups just like Toyota's headquarters factory, with American workers trained in Toyota City serving as team leaders for coordination.

On December 10, 1984, a light yellow Chevrolet Nova rolled off the assembly line, and the new United Automobile Company officially entered production. The first car originally ordered was a bright metallic blue, but there was a problem with the spraying process, so it was changed to a "hazy" light yellow.

Joel Smith, the union representative, spoke at the off-line ceremony: "Gentlemen of Toyota, colleagues, and partners of the union, today is a historic day - our first car rolls off the assembly line. Today is also the starting point of a new journey, a new starting point for employee and management management.

We've been led astray, criticized, and given a bad reputation for a long time. They say we make bad cars, bad American workers! ”

“At NUMMI, we are committed to producing good cars, and we only produce high-quality cars. Mr. Toyota, please convey our challenge to our Japanese friends. We aim to produce the best quality cars in the world. Thank you! ”

NUMMI has embarked on a brilliant development path since then. The factory has produced 8 million high-quality cars in its 25-year history, measured by the number of defective products produced per 100 cars. , NUMMI's performance is the best in the United States, and the quality is comparable to the Corolla produced in Japan. The cost of the "Chevrolet Nova" produced by the joint venture is much lower than that of similar American models produced by Ford and Chrysler, which caused a sensation in the automotive industry. < /p>

Fifteen

"This? American? Life" is a one-hour weekly program on National Radio in the United States, hosted by Ella Glass. The program about the Fremont factory joint venture was broadcast in 2010. We have quoted its content before. In the second half of this program, we talked about the story of the Fremont factory joint venture.

They talked about a small detail of the Toyota Production System - the Andon Line

Frank Langfitt: A basic principle that everyone at GM knows is that the line never stops. Stop.

If someone has a heart attack, get him out of the way.

Rick Madrid: I saw a guy fall into the pits. , they didn't stop.

Jeffrey Rick: At GM, stopping the line was a crime, violating at least ten catch-all rules.

Bruce Lee: You. If you stop the line if you see a problem, you will be fired.

Frank Langfitt: A manager who has worked at GM for many years explained the rationale. It's because the workers don't want to work. Once the line stops, it's their free rest time. They can sit down and play cards or do other things, so they don't want to give them the power to stop the line.

Arthur Haley. The novel "Motor City" describes the situation of the line being stopped: (A bad boy drove a screw into the transmission chain) "For about ten seconds, there was silence. …?A commotion ensued. The alarm bell rang. The sound of panic came from the assembly line in front. After a while, an alarm siren sounded somewhere deep in the factory. In the blink of an eye, it got louder and louder, getting closer and closer. "

"In an instant, seven hundred workers were completely idle, waiting for the assembly line to restart. "

"The sirens were getting closer and louder. In a wide aisle next to the assembly line, those standing there - administrators, custodians, liaison officers and other personnel, They all left in a hurry. Other factory vehicles—forklifts, trucks, and manager vehicles—all pulled over and stopped. I saw a yellow truck, flashing red warning signs, making a sharp turn in the factory and suddenly appeared. This is an emergency repair team, a group of three people, with repair tools and welding equipment. One was driving with one foot against the floor; the other two were hanging on the car, leaning on the welding barrel at the back to support themselves. On the assembly line in front, a foreman raised his hands and gestured to point out the location of the accident. The car slowed and then stopped. The emergency repair crew jumped out of the car in a hurry. "No matter which automobile assembly plant you are in, if the assembly line does not stop running as scheduled, it is an emergency, second only to a fire." Every minute of production loss on the assembly line is equivalent to every minute of loss in wages, management fees, and factory expenses, none of which can be compensated. To put it another way, when the assembly line is running, a car is produced approximately every fifty seconds. If it is not stopped as planned, then the same little time is equal to the loss of the entire cost of a new car. "

... It took four minutes and fifty-five seconds from the assembly line to stop and restart. "This is equivalent to a loss of five and a half cars, which is more than 6,000 yuan. ”

On the production line at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, workers saw Toyota’s solution to the problem. It was a thin nylon rope hung from a hook on the assembly line that marked The way Japan makes cars is different, and this is the Andon line.

When NUMMI was being built, GM personnel questioned the wisdom of installing the "Andon" system, "Are you going to give workers the ability to stop the production line?" Rights? Toyota replied: "No, what we give them is the obligation to stop the production line, as long as they find a problem." ”

Earl Ferguson: This is the Andon cord. Pull this cord and the production line will stop. The red light will light up here and the screen will show that this location is closed.

Frank Langfitt: It also plays a surprisingly upbeat tune where team leaders arrive right away and they try to correct the problem, and usually, they can fix it quickly without stopping production. If no cause is found, the production line keeps stopping.

Nochi Chika said in "Toyota Story": He interviewed an old worker, Paul Bridge, at Toyota's Kentucky plant. He had an experience of "turning on a light" and it took 15 hours to eliminate the fault. , after the incident passed, a Japanese cadre told him: Go to the factory office as soon as you get to work tomorrow. He felt uneasy and almost didn't sleep well all night.

In the factory office, he was received by General Manager Zhang Fujio. Zhang Fujio first bowed to him and thanked him, "I hope you will continue to help us in the future."

Paul Bridge was so moved cried.

Sixteen

John Schuck has worked for Toyota Motor Company for nearly 11 years. When working at Toyota headquarters, he was Toyota's first American Kacho (manager) in Japan ), participated in the preparatory work of NUMMI. In 2010, he published "Toyota's Secret: A3 Report" in "MIT Sloan Management Review". He believed that we should start by changing the way people do things, rather than changing the way they think. "It is easier, Adapt your own way of acting to a new way of thinking, rather than adapting your way of thinking to a new way of acting. "The Toyota Production System is considered "lean thinking," but it changes people's thinking. The pattern is difficult.

“My work experience at NUMMI made me understand a powerful way to change culture, that is, changing culture is not to first change people’s thoughts, but to change people’s behavior, that is, what they do If you want to change the corporate culture, you must clarify what we want to do, how we want to do it, and what actions we expect each other to take, provide training, and implement it at work, and the culture will change.”

“What changed NUMMI’s culture? It’s not an abstract concept of ‘employee participation’ or ‘learning organization’, or even ‘culture’. Changing culture means providing employees with the tools to help them succeed. The way to get things done is to make it clear to employees what their jobs are and to provide them with training and tools so that they can complete their jobs successfully."

"Initially, Toyota focused on making the most of its production system. Toyota was worried about transplanting the core part of its approach to employee development to a workplace as bad as the Fremont plant, and wondered how it could get a workforce with such a bad reputation to support the company. Top-notch product quality? How will these workers embrace the concept of teamwork and practice it themselves? "The results show that 'trouble-seeking' workers are not the source of the problem. In the past, the absenteeism rate was often 20% or more, but later it remained stable at 2%. The original product quality was the worst in the General Motors system. , and after NUMMI was put into production, it only took one year for its product quality to become the best in the general system. All of this was made by the same group of workers, including those who were "trouble-seeking". , the only change is the production and management system, or to some extent the company's culture."

"I am often asked, what motivates the employees of Toyota Japan to be so dedicated? A very important factor is employees' sense of belonging. Let's ask an interesting question, 'What is the essence of a good company-employee relationship?' In Toyota or NUMMI, the company's commitment to employees is very clear. On the contrary, even Japan's Toyota does not provide employees with an iron rice bowl, and no employer can guarantee that it will provide employees with an iron rice bowl. What the employer can do, and what Toyota actually does, is to make a statement: 'The company's last option is. Laying off employees'. Only when there is no choice, the company will consider layoffs. With such a policy, real trust can be established between the company and employees, and employees will be motivated to build a sense of ownership. At NUMMI, this policy is called mutual responsibility. Trust.

”

Toyota’s management methods at NUMMI

“In the early days of NUMMI, there was a debate about basic personnel policies, which was not known to outsiders. Known, but intense and interesting. NUMMI people believe that direct supervisors of production lines should be involved in the recruitment of employees in their own departments, that is, while requiring supervisors to take responsibility, they should also be empowered. NUMMI's U.S. executives and Toyota personnel stationed at NUMMI unanimously agree with this view. "

"However, the senior personnel manager at the Japanese headquarters strongly opposed this view. This matter does not represent the differences between the views of Japan and the United States, nor the differences between the views of Toyota and General Motors. It represents the differences between the views of Japanese and American managers within NUMMI and the managers of Toyota headquarters. When I first heard about this from my NUMMI friends, from their one-sided narrative, I immediately agreed with them because their solution seemed correct. "

"When I talked with the senior manager of Toyota's Japan headquarters, I found that this matter was much deeper and more complicated than my first understanding. It reflected the company-employee relationship. core question. ”

“At Toyota, employees’ direct supervisors have no authority to hire or fire their employees. The company will support every employee and protect them from unfair treatment by boring and flippant bosses.

Workers are hired by the company and are employees of the company, not any individual who happens to be his supervisor. Personnel power is the power of the company's personnel department, not the power of other department managers. Employees need to feel safe in the company. With a sense of security, they can freely support and actively participate in continuous improvement. Then, even if continuous improvement happens to result in the same workload requiring fewer people, no one will have to worry that his position is in jeopardy because he is an employee of the company. ”

“The participation of production supervisors in recruitment interviews is considered to violate the basic concept of separation of powers and will send a message to new employees: their employment relationship is between themselves and their immediate supervisor. No matter how subtle the message is. ”

“Finally, I agree with my colleagues in Japan. The final decision, however, is left to California's homegrown management. ”

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.