NUMMI Closes… The Employees’ Ability to Learn Will Help Them Move Forward
Last Thursday, the final vehicle rolled off the assembly-line at NUMMI. I was very fortunate to have visited the NUMMI plant in Fremont a year ago. It was known at that time that GM was no longer going to support the facility but the assumption was that Toyota or another organization would continue to build cars there. You can still visit the website and review the timeline which, interestingly, begins with GM permanently closing its manufacturing plant in 1982. Perhaps down the line the plant will come back again.
The people at the NUMMI plant were part of a fantastic learning system, one that relied on continuous feedback, ongoing learning and systemic improvement to produce very high quality vehicles. When I took the Posit Science leadership team to visit NUMMI, the economy had reduced car sales to the point where the plant was running at half capacity. The employees were spending the time when the line was not operating figuring out ways to improve efficiency and taking classes in a variety of topics from quality to statistics. This will be a difficult transition for the employees but given their capability to learn and adapt I have confidence they will land on their feet. A recent ABC News 7 story quoted Leta Stagnaro at Ohlone College’s Newark Center for Health Care & Technology saying, “Factoring in re-training, it will be six months to a year before the former NUMMI employees will be ready to start looking for jobs.”
It is precisely the employees’ willingness to try new things, learn new skills, and respond to feedback that will help them find a new job. It also reminds me of the types of qualities all of us need to keep our brains healthy.
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