GM's Success in Copying Toyota's Shopfloor System?

Op-Ed
Contributor - G.M.’s Secret Success - NYTimes.com

I agree with the basic premise of this piece that not all is rotten
in GM. For example, I rather like some of their recent products –
design and execution (Chevy Malibu/Saturn Aura, Solstice/Sky,
Cadillac products). I won’t go so far as defending CEO Rick
Wagoner, as the piece does.

The one detail that jumped out at me:

The company has made enormous strides in imitating and
improving upon Toyota’s lean manufacturing system. At G.M.
plants, gone are the mass assembly techniques pioneered by Henry
Ford. Instead, workers are
organized in small Japanese-style teams and encouraged to make sure
problems are fixed on the spot rather than passed down the
line. The quality gap between G.M. and Toyota has been
closed.

GM has been copying Toyota on the shopfloor (or trying) for
decades. That was part of my work at a GM plant in the mid-90’s.
Even if a lot of progress has been made, the shopfloor success
alone won’t save the company.

I’m looking for comments from current or recent GM shopfloor folks
(salaried or UAW). Do you believe or agree with the bolded
statement about workers being empowered to stop the line and
participate in quality improvement? Is the author of the NY Times
piece reflecting reality or embellishing it? I’m certain they have
andon cords in place, but how has the culture changed at the gemba?
How do supervisors react when an employee suspects a problem (or
admits making an error)?

It’s ironic, also, that Henry Ford is bashed as “mass production”
when Toyota learned so much from Henry Ford (the man) and
eventually Ford (the company) got away from Henry’s principles. So
to say Henry Ford’s principles are “gone” doesn’t seem very
accurate. Henry Ford was reputed to say something like “Why is it
when I hire a pair of hands, a brain comes attached?” It that quote
was accurate, that aspect of Henry Ford-ism is something I’d hope
would be gone from a modern GM (or Ford Motor Company, for that
matter…. or any workplace).

Some of my questioning/cynicism comes from this
earlier story about a Ford plant where (due to the culture) the
workers were afraid to pull the andon cord.