GM selling majority stake of commercial

Actually I found *most* of the book surreal and thank you for pointing it out to me by the way. It was particularly moving for me as you may recall, the initial plant surveys were done in two plants, one in Japan and one in Framingham, Mass in the US.

Well my dad worked in that Framingham plant for the railroad delivering the output of that plant to the marketplace. He was part of the railroad union. I grew up in that area and knew a lot of GM people back in those days. I remember they all drove big GM wagons at the time like the Buick Estate wagon. I remember also thinking how affluent they were, working for GM. My how times have changed.

As the book points out the Framingham plant was shuttered in 1989. This had been rumored for a long time before it actually happened. Of course Framingham survived and the plant is currently occupied by a used car auction house last I knew (I've been away from the area for many years.)

Yes, nearly every auto company now uses a form of the Toyota Production Method.  However, not every auto company practices kaizen.  Part of kaizen is thinking wholistically while eliminating waste.  GM, especially at the very top, has a hard time with both.  A FIAT debacle or allowing soap salesmen to torch your brands would never happen at Toyota because of the kaizen discipline.  The fact that Womack's book (which was "old" news to industry people at the time) was published nearly 15 years ago yet GM's management is still running up down escalators says it all.  The part of Toyota's philosophy that GM has adopted apparently is applicable in their minds only to the shop floor.  That's really the problem.  By the way, I like the new Impala and LaCrosse, but it's somewhat surreal that the pitiful failures of GM-10 are outlined in this 15 year old book.