* Steve Bera, Reflections on NUMMI and #Lean, Part 1

See http://www.leanblog.org/256

Remastered audio 2025

I'm really excited to have Steve Bera as my guest for episode #256 of the podcast. I read about him as he was featured prominently in a chapter of the 1994 Pulitzer-Prize winning book Comeback: The Fall & Rise of the American Automobile Industry. I just finished it during my recent flight back from China.

The book is about the struggles of the Detroit automakers in the 1980s and early '90s. Steve was featured in the book as he was one of the first 16 GM managers and leaders to be sent to work with Toyota at the famed NUMMI joint venture factory in California. Steve was also part of the “This American Life” episode that looked back at the lessons from NUMMI. If you're not familiar with the NUMMI story, you might want to listen to that first.

He learned some amazing lessons from Toyota… but left GM after his two-year NUMMI stint, as he was concerned that he wouldn't be effective back within the traditional GM (you'll hear about that in Part 2). So, since then, Steve has worked as a consultant and leader in many industries, including some recent time working for large retailers, working to create Lean supply chains.

We had a very long chat, so I'm releasing two parts to this discussion in separate episodes (see also Episode #259). I am also sharing a transcript for the episode at the end of this post. I hope you enjoy the reflections as much as I did. You can also read a summary I wrote of the two posts on LinkedIn.