Nummi

There are different types of company culture like there are different types of personality. As we compare to Japanese and American culture we can more or less comment on why GM was having difficulties while learning from the NUMMI experience. The GM plant in Fremont, California was opened in 1963 and closed down in 1982 due to bottom ranked in productivity among GM plants and the reputation of the worst quality cars in the entire GM system. The major problem was heavily relying on mistrust and fairness between management and union. Whereas Toyota at Nummi showed the importance of using all means available to establish a climate of fairness such as flat organization, fewer levels of management, no exclusive bonuses and no distinctions between managers and team members such as using the same cafeteria for lunch or no dress differences. The core values were customer satisfaction by means of high quality and low cost, dignity, trust, teamwork, consistency, continual improvement. This sort of approaches was quite different from typical American manufacturing culture as well as its culture itself. Japanese already discovered that in order to maintain waste free and high quality production they have to work well with people work on the line and provide them to the same privilege as white collar employees. Employees in most Japanese companies stay in the companies from low position to higher position and they generally work in the companies for their whole career. In the U.S. companies often go through massive reorganization, therefore employees will be promoted or laid