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For Ford, 2008 is suddenly a lot closer


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Well, Toyota might've avoided an embarassing recall on the 2007 Camry if they'd followed Ford's practices. As well as crticism from the finicky Lienerts over the fit and finish of that same car.

 

 

Richard, There's no pleasing Bluecon. If Ford was as fast as Toyota with the same problems he would just say its because Fords are lousy. I would be happier with quick and perfect launches, but I understand that cars and trucks are increasingly complicated machines. Given the choice I would take quality over speed. Hopefully Ford will be able to reclaim that quality is Job 1. Recalls won't do that.

 

I for one can't wait till Bluecon gets Toyota

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Don't I know it. Sometimes I answer his foolishness, other times it's more fun to play games. I think I'm going to start playing games again.

What kind of games?

 

Problem is if it was like sayyy--- baseball you would be batting .200 with lots of dropped balls.

 

The slow Ford launches aren't designed that way. It is just a lack of ability to launch quickly.

In a few months the Camry has like doubled the number of Fusions built since the launch last year.

That will pay for a lot of little problems.

 

I know a guy who bought a 500 when they first came out. The paint was chipping off behind the rear wheels.

The dealer repainted and of course the paint chipped off again. The solution was for the dealer to put mudflaps on

the car. Needless to say he was not pleased and will not be back for another Ford product.

Edited by Bluecon
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Actually I don't do it all by myself. You guys provide much of the material as in this case saying that going very slow in this fast paced competitive market is an advantage.

 

It's not going slow, it's building something right.

 

Image of perceived quality is something Ford must fight because it's an American company. By building extremely reliable vehicles that also are well-groomed design-wise, that can be a winning combination. The only thing they need to look into is the interiors, really. (Oh and a new Focus couldn't hurt)

 

___

 

I know a guy who bought a 500 when they first came out. The paint was chipping off behind the rear wheels.

The dealer repainted and of course the paint chipped off again. The solution was for the dealer to put mudflaps on the car. Needless to say he was not pleased and will not be back for another Ford product.

 

That dealer's an idiot.

 

What color car, BTW?

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Way Forward changes:

 

1. The CUSTOMER defines quality, anything more or anything less is a waste of time and money, seriously, this a VERY large change that few companies understand

 

2. Limiting quantities of a hot item, this is easily seen replicated in other industies, Microsoft -> Xbox 360, Apple -> every IPod flavor, Motorola -> stupid RAZR and SLVR phones, etc.

 

3. Making decisions based on market demands, not middle management promotion opportunities (God help us on this one)

 

If we really want to jump start the Way Forward and remove the middle management attitude problem, REMOVE THE MANAGEMENT LOTS ON THE DEARBORN CAMPUS!!! What an awesome way to level the field, why is middle management soo important anyway? In these days of emails and the new Innovation website, feedback from a GSR to a VP or higher is just a mouse click away.

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Way Forward changes:

 

1. The CUSTOMER defines quality, anything more or anything less is a waste of time and money, seriously, this a VERY large change that few companies understand

 

2. Limiting quantities of a hot item, this is easily seen replicated in other industies, Microsoft -> Xbox 360, Apple -> every IPod flavor, Motorola -> stupid RAZR and SLVR phones, etc.

 

3. Making decisions based on market demands, not middle management promotion opportunities (God help us on this one)

 

If we really want to jump start the Way Forward and remove the middle management attitude problem, REMOVE THE MANAGEMENT LOTS ON THE DEARBORN CAMPUS!!! What an awesome way to level the field, why is middle management soo important anyway? In these days of emails and the new Innovation website, feedback from a GSR to a VP or higher is just a mouse click away.

The guy on the bottom knows everything. The guys in the middle are a waste. The guys on top need the bottom guys information. The middleman makes sure neither side gets in touch. Ford has vegetables working in upperand lower management. :shrug:

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The guy on the bottom knows everything. The guys in the middle are a waste. The guys on top need the bottom guys information. The middleman makes sure neither side gets in touch. Ford has vegetables working in upperand lower management. :shrug:

 

Why do people make sweeping generalizations about Upper and Middle management with no idea of what they do or what decisions they make on a day to day basis. Most importantly many have no idea of the obstacles or barriers that impede their best efforts.

 

I understand that Upper management deserves criticism but don't harp on LL6's and LL5's because they work just as hard as the people on the bottom with few perks other than a management lease. There is dead weight at all levels in every organization. I would never categorize all UAW workers as lazy with entitlement issues but at the same time we all know that some are.

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Why do people make sweeping generalizations about Upper and Middle management with no idea of what they do or what decisions they make on a day to day basis. Most importantly many have no idea of the obstacles or barriers that impede their best efforts.

 

I understand that Upper management deserves criticism but don't harp on LL6's and LL5's because they work just as hard as the people on the bottom with few perks other than a management lease. There is dead weight at all levels in every organization. I would never categorize all UAW workers as lazy with entitlement issues but at the same time we all know that some are.

 

The LL5's and LL6's were the GSRs during the "good times" when the Explorer couldn't be beaten and the company was making money hand over fist. That kind of experience for someone early in their career is very different now the company has to fight to stop market share bleeding, I'm sure that every LL5 and LL6 are very capable human beings, but we live in a different age now, read Subir Chowdhury, Ford's current culture is only sustainable during good times, times are different now. Decisions made in the past 5 years are what got us where we are today, like MF said, Change or Die.

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Why do people make sweeping generalizations about Upper and Middle management with no idea of what they do or what decisions they make on a day to day basis. Most importantly many have no idea of the obstacles or barriers that impede their best efforts.

 

I understand that Upper management deserves criticism but don't harp on LL6's and LL5's because they work just as hard as the people on the bottom with few perks other than a management lease. There is dead weight at all levels in every organization. I would never categorize all UAW workers as lazy with entitlement issues but at the same time we all know that some are.

I understand that the obstacles and barriers that impede their efforts is their fault. Beurocracy is only felt by the weak individual. If corporate structure is broken, you must attack the middle to find out if the problem is top-heavy or bottom-heavy- or neither. Ford has all 3 problems. Corporatre structure, Top-Heavy, Middle Heavy, and bottom Heavy. oops thats 4

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This discussion of management reminds me of medieval discussions about how many angels can dance on a pin.

 

"1. The CUSTOMER defines quality, anything more or anything less is a waste of time and money, seriously, this a VERY large change that few companies understand"

 

Basically, all the customer sees is the product. So, the heart of the matter is the product: what it looks like, how it is designed, how it is built. Those decisions rightly belong at the top. Other levels react to these decisions over time, and we get business process, the day-to-day experience of running the corporation. This reactive structure can be a Harry Bennett fascist corporate structure, or it can be something benevolent.

 

IMHO, the shape of this day-to-day management reflects the attitudes at the top. If the dude at the top is Harry Bennett or Josef Stalin,, the alpha-types in middle-management are similarly ruthless. Sorta like Reinhard Heydrich with an MBA as Zone Manager.

 

Ford's problem was that Jac was focussed on business WANTS, rather than business NEEDS, in contrast to his humbler predecessors that generated the Escort, Tempo, Taurus.

 

As outsiders, we will probably never know the whole inside story of the Jac experience and the re-building. When you consider that Detroit has been regarded as the bastion of the "Not Invented Here" mind-set, the decisions at the top to adopt Mazda/Volvo/Haldex/Z-F technology as the starting-point for the new Ford product are all the more remarkable.

 

IMHO, the next big task for FoMoCo senior management is to work on the customer's dealership experience, now that there's product appearing in the showroom that people will actually want to check out.

 

This means that the grief HAS to be taken out of the warranty process.

 

You WANT to sell more cars. Therefore, you NEED to build what the customer sees as great cars, and you NEED to make the ownership experience as positive as possible. Wants and needs.

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Basically, all the customer sees is the product. So, the heart of the matter is the product: what it looks like, how it is designed, how it is built. Those decisions rightly belong at the top. Other levels react to these decisions over time, and we get business process, the day-to-day experience of running the corporation. This reactive structure can be a Harry Bennett fascist corporate structure, or it can be something benevolent.

 

YOU'RE SERIOUS?!?!?! I hope not, was this not the lesson learned from the 70's? Toyota is paranoid about making and keeping their target customers happy, not keeping the decisions at the top.

 

Please do me a favor, look up Subir Chowdhury and ASI, Inc. They helped Hyundai beat Toyota on the JD Power 3MIS survey.

 

The customer will always define quality, either too much or too little, and you're toast. The heart of the matter is the heart of the customer, capture that and you're done, market share becomes less of a problem, just making and keeping a TARGET customer happy is a much easier task.

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Decisions made in the past 5 years are what got us where we are today, like MF said, Change or Die.

No. Decisions made in the last 5 years were not sufficient. Ford dramatically altered its approach to quality from job 1, and implemented a comprehensive global platform strategy that has yielded some very good results.

 

However, Ford did not adopt a market driven mindset (which includes, as a sort of "subset", the idea that the customer defines quality), nor did they place sufficient emphasis on brand positioning in the first restructuring. What Fields has done is take the product engineering and quality control groundwork of engineers like Padilla and Chris Theodore and put it in the proper context with the marketplace. The backend work has largely been done. Ford does not need to rebuild the systems that are in place to ensure quality launches and reliable product. However, they need to 1) reduce capacity and headcount (which indeed is not sustainable in tough times), and 2) fully implement Fields' market driven methodology. Fields has brought NA designers and NA design philosophy around to the revolutionary concept that Fords should look like Fords, etc.

 

This restructuring will leave Ford in a far more competitive position than GM and DCX.

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New launches from Ford have consistently placed in the top three on JD Power IQS studies. Similar results have not been achieved by GM and Chrysler. Among the seven vehicles on new architectures Ford has launched since MY 2005 (the Five Hundred, Montego, Freestyle, Mustang, Fusion, Milan, and Zephyr), there has been exactly one recall, concerning gas straps of sub-par quality that could fail after 100k miles.

 

I think that Richard has pointed out one of the most positive signs for Ford. They really haven't screwed up a launch recently. The effect of the botched launch of the Focus is still being felt by Ford, since it really ruined the image of a great small car. I think that Focuses wouldn't have to be so highly discounted today if the launch had gone off correctly. If Ford could get more $$ per Focus we might even have seen the euro version.

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