GM and Toyota opened a assembly plant in Fremont, California in 1984 to manufacture vehicles to be sold under both brands. The collaboration could be beneficial to GM because it was an opportunity to learn how a Japanese company operates and how to combine techniques to eventually make a plant that exceeds all others. The main goal of both companies was to learn how each other operates to mimic the management style and operations. It was also beneficial to Toyota because they could learn to operate in an American environment. The factory which was built by GM was taken over by the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI).

The plan was to have car produced under Toyotas supervision in a Japanese way. When the joint venture failed both companies pulled out but GM first. When GM pulled out the plant was no longer viable. The main reason the plant closed was because the plant was not built to survive without a partner. Workers were afraid to lose jobs and mainly benefits. A lot of the burden was on shipping parts back and forth to facilities. When NUMMI reopened, GM workers were rehired. From that point things had to change from the old style of operations. Employee's were treated with equality and with respect. Under Toyotas system who set up a spot in the refurbished plant after reopening. Teams were organized. Jobs were rotated and employee's were given control over personal work processes. The operations system worked mainly my breaking down the job into specific steps to work more efficiently. The plan was to work smarter not harder. The "refurbished" plant was almost as efficient as the Toyota plant in Japan. The key goal is quality. The overcome traditional hostility between labor and management to get workers to care about efficiency and quality. Once the factory adopted a japanese management style things were headed in the right direction.

One of the main products within the NUMMI factory was inventory which played a vital role in efficiency and quality. A stamping plant was built next to the assembly line which was visited regularly by GM personnel from other cities. When the plant began implementing NUMMI methods it began to see a positive change. This became the only Japanese run plant in the United States with a union contract. Some of the most controversial concessions during this time were job classifications dropped, workers did a wide range of task, no strikes over work standards, no lay-offs unless a last resort. Quality was the number one goal in the reconstruction of everything. Toyota figured as long as we can get workers here to work consistently we can turn this around. Now that Toyota knows how to operate in America is can expand its empire.

The NUMMI plant rehired George Nano, UAW shop chairman. Problems seemed to still be present to a lot of workers. Bob Silva, one of the workers even formed a union splitter group to challenge George Nano in elections because he believed Nano's operations weren't efficient. Some workers felt too many tasks were required in a short amount of time. George Nano operated under the old system which lacked in production and quality. NUMMI employee's prefer newer methods over old.
The GM plants had a chance to see and experience a new way of operating. GM has to change from their old way of thinking and began adopting NUMMI techniques where Toyota was not involved with.

The key factor in closing the plant was efficiency. GM strived to operate within a JIT delivery system like in Japan to speed up processes. Personally I believe that GM could have not pulled out and tried to fix the problem. Even though it seemed to be a good plan and didn't lose too much money. Look at GM now. Just coming out of bankruptcy. If they stay around during those times i'm sure it would have been of great benefit to them. They could have even expanded their company even further internationally. GM saw that their cost would excess profits from this plant and that's one of the reasons they pulled out of the deal. NUMMI took over and showed GM how it was suppose to be done at the same plant. Which shows GM didn't have to pull out of the joint venture but rather hire new management. They wanted to compete internationally but didn't want to put in the leg work and because of that they lost a potentially multi-million even billion dollar plants now run by Tesla Motors.

Years later Toyota has learned how to operate within an American society. Relationships had to be built and respect had to be given in order for any business between the countries to flourish. In the end a lot of union members got their jobs back and are focused more on quality of products overall. Once quality is in line everything else falls into place. The plan whether is be Toyoya or GM was to produce quality fast and easy. Another goal of both companies was to break records. GM needed to reduce costs as much as possible in order to continue being a landmark in the auto industry. A situation that Fremont was compared to was Detroit's situation. Although not as damaging to Fremont it showed how they had to think to get out of the bubble. Now cars are cheaper to make, more reliable and faster to make. This is what both companies wanted overall. To be able to operate worldwide at the same production as anywhere else.