New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. ↦

This American Life is a radio series on NPR (National Public Radio) which recently aired an episode exploring the joint-venture between General Motors and Toyota called New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. or NUMMI. The venture started in 1984 with General Motors providing a recently closed plant in California and Toyota providing its now legendary manufacturing process. NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt tells how Toyota’s processes turned one of the worst automobile plants in the world into one of the best and how GM’s stagnant corporate culture utterly failed to embrace change and copy this success to its other plants.