NUMMI No-Layoff Story

Several years before Toyota shutdown the NUMMI plant, I took a tour there.

One of the workers showed us a video of how great NUMMI is and that there had never been a layoff there.

Later the worker told us it was his last day because he was being laid off.

I raised my hand and pointed out the contradiction. He then explained there's never been a lay-off of permanent employees.

I later wondered if Toyota's large temp force was their way of solving the Layoff Dilemma (how to get employees to co-operate with process improvement when that could lead to their own obsolescence and layoff).

Temporary employees might be motivated to cooperate with process improvement if that could lead to permanent status.

Permanent employees are not demotivated to cooperate because they are never (or rarely) laid off.

Just a thought, not sure if that's what they do.

Root Cause

Scenario: Some bad event B happens in a manufacturing environment.

A root cause investigation is conducted and it is determined that R is the root cause (or set of causes) of B.

Corrective action (or set of actions) C is taken to eliminate the possibility of R occurring again.

Yet the same bad event B happens 3 months later.

What happened?

There are three possibilities:

1. C wasn't implemented correctly
2. C doesn't really eliminate the possibility of R
3. R isn't really the root cause of B

Options 2 and 3 often aren't considered.

Factory Simulator

I've been working on a Factory Simulator program that combines an operational view with an accounting view so you can see how operational changes affects the bottom line. Check it out at

www.manufacturingsimulation.org