<P> By December 1984, the first car, a yellow Chevrolet Nova rolled off the assembly line . And almost right away, the NUMMI factory was producing cars at the same speed and with as few defects per 100 vehicles as those produced in Japan, with higher worker satisfaction . </P> <P> In 1988 NUMMI operated at 58.6% capacity, and had not reached break - even by 1991 . </P> <P> Despite the early success at Fremont, by 1998 (15 years later) GM had still not been able to implement lean manufacturing in the rest of the United States, though GM managers trained at NUMMI were successful in introducing the approach to its unionized factories in Brazil . </P> <P> Some of the challenges for the factory were higher costs . Daily tours of the plant, offered free to the public, were ended on February 27, 2009 . </P>

Who set the norms in the old nummi plant