Tag: Livonia

TL;DR: A GM flashback shows how blame-based, command-and-control leadership destroys accountability instead of creating it. Real accountability starts at the top--when leaders model learning,...

My first job out of college was as an Industrial Engineer at the General Motors Livonia Engine Plant. Blogging didn't exist then (I didn't even have email or internet access at work) or I might have started my writing career then. Oh, the stories. I've shared some of them on this blog over time. I've blogged about papers from the Don Ephlin files, a former UAW national leader. I have my own small collection of documents and artifacts from my days at GM that I thought to keep in a folder. I still have that folder today. A few of these memos tell the story of a quality and productivity death spiral that eventually led to our plant manager being replaced. And, by "replaced," I don't mean fired or given an early retirement. He was, at least in title, PROMOTED to a role at GM Powertrain headquarters. Thankfully, the new plant manager, Larry Spiegel, was one of the original "NUMMI commandos" and he made a huge difference to the plant and to me, personally.

Yesterday, the W. Edwards Deming Institute published the second in my series of three posts for them: "The Failure of "The Livonia Philosophy" at my GM Plant." Read more...

TL;DR: Lean transformation isn't about copying Toyota's tools. In this video, John Shook of the Lean Enterprise Institute explains why real Lean starts with...

TL;DR: NPR's "End of the Line" on NUMMI reminds us that performance problems weren't caused by "bad workers," but by bad management systems. The...

I love it when I have a chance to meet Lean Blog readers and Twitter followers in the "real world." In the past few...

As I thought about this post earlier, with the employee quote about being beaten down, I had a flashback to my time at GM,...

As Auto Prosperity Shifts South, Two Towns Offer a Study in Contrasts - New York Times Here's a free Detroit News version of the article....