60 Days From Now...

[g48150]

The day is nigh for the end of the Good Old Boys. PD is about to receive the earthquake that it desperately needs. FRESH BLOOD is needed.

 

When old Henry first formed the company business, he took ARMY guys in as HIS foundation for the company. Post-WWII was a great time to be in an industrial business. Times have changed, even the Army has, its now "The Army of One".

 

ITS TIME TO HIRE ALL OF THE LIEUTS, COLONELS, MAJORS, etc. that are coming back from Iraq and form the core of the company again! What a great way to give back!

[sparks will fly]

They were more like a bunch of goons wanting to bust heads all the time trying to keep unions from forming.

Every time I think fresh blood will help the plant I seem to wonder why I didn't like the last group fairly quickly. It is like being a trainer teaching the same thing over and over with the explaination not sinking in more and more. Isure miss some of the good old boys and those profits we had then too. No need to answer because I might chastise you right? Ostrich

[RichardJensen]

Ford doesn't need new blood. They need promotional practices and review guidelines that recognize and reward innovative thinking. It worked at IBM...

[Footballfan]

Ford doesn't need new blood. They need promotional practices and review guidelines that recognize and reward innovative thinking. It worked at IBM...

 

Upper management would have to recognize innovation to promote it. They have proven that they do not have the capability to do that.

[sparks will fly]

Is new blood a statement about the "country club" types? That would be the only ones promoted from within.

[g48150]

Here's my gripes with the "Good Old Boys" (further as GOB):

 

1. Having been through two performance reviews, I noticed that there were 5 rankings for overall performance, Outstanding, Excellent Plus, Excellent, Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement. WTF, how about just Outstanding, Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement. I asked my supervisor about that and she said "You don't want to get anything lower than an Excellent Plus, you'll get fired". Well woo-hoo, I'd like to meet the GOB that came up with this cluster of a ranking system. Every other large company I've worked for has 3 rankings. Aren't we done with talking ourselves up? How High School is that to want to be "talked about" in the halls of hallowed PD, pfffft, LETS FOCUS ON THE CARS, GOB.

 

2. Management Lots. Nuff said, is a GSR REALLY going to vandalize your car, come on now, this isn't High School.

 

3. Inability to care about the customer. Not really a gripe, just a general NO statement

 

4. Supplier relations. What??? There are actually suppliers around that do work. NO SHERLOCK, these hard working men and women are the reason we have parts for the cars, how about treating them with respect.

 

5. :titanic: The general feeling after yesterday, that's all I heard yesterday was the "I'm cashing out now" theme, all throughout where I sit.

 

There's more, but most of em would require a for most of it. These people have chosen the Die part of "Change or Die". Don't agree? Why would someone in the GOB network NOT send a Way Forward presentation to the Oakland Press? These people are desperate, MF is NOT one of them and they know this, NO ONE, not even Mr. Ford has MORE to lose than the GOB with Way Forward, NO ONE.

[ZanatWork]

Upper management would have to recognize innovation to promote it. They have proven that they do not have the capability to do that.

 

 

The main guy is now Mark Fields...show me where your sentence is true in his history, or take it back.

[sparks will fly]

Here's my gripes with the "Good Old Boys" (further as GOB):

 

1. Having been through two performance reviews, I noticed that there were 5 rankings for overall performance, Outstanding, Excellent Plus, Excellent, Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement. WTF, how about just Outstanding, Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement. I asked my supervisor about that and she said "You don't want to get anything lower than an Excellent Plus, you'll get fired". Well woo-hoo, I'd like to meet the GOB that came up with this cluster of a ranking system. Every other large company I've worked for has 3 rankings. Aren't we done with talking ourselves up? How High School is that to want to be "talked about" in the halls of hallowed PD, pfffft, LETS FOCUS ON THE CARS, GOB.

 

2. Management Lots. Nuff said, is a GSR REALLY going to vandalize your car, come on now, this isn't High School.

 

3. Inability to care about the customer. Not really a gripe, just a general NO statement

 

4. Supplier relations. What??? There are actually suppliers around that do work. NO SHERLOCK, these hard working men and women are the reason we have parts for the cars, how about treating them with respect.

 

5. :titanic: The general feeling after yesterday, that's all I heard yesterday was the "I'm cashing out now" theme, all throughout where I sit.

 

There's more, but most of em would require a for most of it. These people have chosen the Die part of "Change or Die". Don't agree? Why would someone in the GOB network NOT send a Way Forward presentation to the Oakland Press? These people are desperate, MF is NOT one of them and they know this, NO ONE, not even Mr. Ford has MORE to lose than the GOB with Way Forward, NO ONE.

 

 

Well the GOB where you are is different than wher I am. I do know that the 5 rankings are like A thur F from school days. The part that kills me is that no one gets an E+ on thier first review.

 

GSR?

 

The customer that gets bad treatment is not a customer the next time they go to buy a car. BRILLANT.

 

Suppliers get treated worse than the customer most of the time, Wlamart mentality. We have more power we will dictate to you got it.

 

Yesterday was more like cut more, lose more, WTF at plant level. It takes money to make money you just have to know HOW to spend it. That is where we are waiting on MF, time to pony up.

 

I don't know about "change or die" its more like " fedup and fight" at the plants. Moral is the lowest I ever seen it, with the challenges facing families these days I wonder not if but when someone will go postal. Bill has alot to lose but even if grandpa's company rolls over he is set for life, thanksgiving dinner will just suck for him.

[Footballfan]

The main guy is now Mark Fields...show me where your sentence is true in his history, or take it back.

 

Unfortunately the history is recent- like a day or so ago when Ford said they are essentially ripping up a six-year turnaround plan less than six months after it being implemented. Fields may be fine for a division like Mazda or Volvo, but not for an entire company.

[Noah Harbinger]

Unfortunately the history is recent- like a day or so ago when Ford said they are essentially ripping up a six-year turnaround plan less than six months after it being implemented. Fields may be fine for a division like Mazda or Volvo, but not for an entire company.

 

Meh, I think he's talking big to impress the shareholders but sticking to the original plan. Saying "the plan's good, we're gonna toe the line" just won't cut it to impatient Wall Street A holes. . .

[RichardJensen]

Unfortunately the history is recent- like a day or so ago when Ford said they are essentially ripping up a six-year turnaround plan less than six months after it being implemented. Fields may be fine for a division like Mazda or Volvo, but not for an entire company.

Mark Fields is president of NA ops. Responsible for like 37% of all Ford vehicle sales, world wide.

 

It's not "an entire company".

 

Also it's your assumption that they are 'essentially ripping up a six-year turnaround plan', as opposed to assuming that, logically, they would construct a series of scenarios, and try the lest disruptive first. Remember, Ford has basically thumbed his nose at Wall Street when he declined to provide even basic guidance to analysts at the Way Forward announcement.

[Footballfan]

Mark Fields is president of NA ops. Responsible for like 37% of all Ford vehicle sales, world wide.

 

It's not "an entire company".

 

Also it's your assumption that they are 'essentially ripping up a six-year turnaround plan', as opposed to assuming that, logically, they would construct a series of scenarios, and try the lest disruptive first. Remember, Ford has basically thumbed his nose at Wall Street when he declined to provide even basic guidance to analysts at the Way Forward announcement.

 

Those 37 percent of sales are critical and will make or break the company.

[RichardJensen]

Those 37 percent of sales are critical and will make or break the company.

But it is not the company itself. Just a reminder to be accurate in statements like 'Fields is not fit to run the entire company'.

 

As to the adjustments to the "Way Forward" plan, there's a Freep article that discloses the dramatic falloff in pickup sales this year, and Ford management discernment that these buyers are not delaying purchases, they're leaving the segment.

 

This development has caught the entire industry off guard, but it is especially critical that Ford adjust to it ASAP.

 

Once again, the question is posed: What should Ford have done with this new information? Ignored it, or responded to it?

 

Rapid response to market shifts are something that analysts have been demanding for years. Then, all of a sudden, when it actually happens, they don't know what to make of it.

[taxman100]

Also it's your assumption that they are 'essentially ripping up a six-year turnaround plan', as opposed to assuming that, logically, they would construct a series of scenarios, and try the lest disruptive first. Remember, Ford has basically thumbed his nose at Wall Street when he declined to provide even basic guidance to analysts at the Way Forward announcement.

 

Not providing guidance is what most companies do when they have bad news to hide.

 

Ford is badly floundering - a cumulation of bad decisions made in the last 15 years, starting with the worst, which was the purchase of Jaguar, followed by the gutting of North American R&D in order to use "world platforms".

[DCK]

Ford doesn't need new blood. They need promotional practices and review guidelines that recognize and reward innovative thinking. It worked at IBM...

They need to get rid of the penny pinchers and the complete idiots who murder and neglict their vehicles like the ranger, focus, crown vic, explorer, escape, expedition and so on.

[RichardJensen]

They need to get rid of the penny pinchers and the complete idiots who murder and neglict their vehicles like the ranger, focus, crown vic, explorer, escape, expedition and so on.

Y'know, I may come across as a passionate defender of the status quo at Ford. I'm not, really. I'm just passionate about logically constructed arguments that are supportable by independently verifiable facts.

 

It's something that I learned to care about while getting a 'worthless' liberal arts degree.

 

I mean maybe that's not why you're here. Maybe you don't care about the quality of your arguments. Maybe you just want to vent your spleen. Go ahead. But for cryin' out loud, don't be surprised if I stop taking you seriously.

 

You want to prove something? Prove it. Do the research. Find facts. Support your assertions. Stop assuming that the rest of us will be persuaded to believe assertions that you cannot be bothered to support by verifiable facts.

Edited July 22, 2006 by RichardJensen

[Ovaltine]

ITS TIME TO HIRE ALL OF THE LIEUTS, COLONELS, MAJORS, etc. that are coming back from Iraq and form the core of the company again! What a great way to give back!

They were more like a bunch of goons wanting to bust heads all the time trying to keep unions from forming.

 

 

Uh oh..... it looks like someone needs to brush up on their Ford history! You're confusing the Deuce's post-WWII "Whiz Kids" with Henry's goon squad headed by Harry Bennett.

 

BIIIIGGGG difference!

 

By the time the "Whiz Kids" came, the UAW was already in at Ford.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Auto_Workers

 

The UAW's next target was the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford had promised that "The UAW would organize Ford over my dead body." Ford selected Harry Bennett to keep the union out of the company, and the Ford Service Department was set up as an internal security, intimidation, and espionage unit within the company, and quickly gained a reputation of using violence against union organizers and sympathizers (see The Battle of the Overpass). It took until 1941 for Ford to agree to a collective bargaining agreement with the UAW. ( Note: The "Whiz Kids" didn't arrive until 1946.... post war!" )

 

 

The "Whiz Kids" disassociation with union busting is also confirmed here:

 

 

http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9034844

Henry Ford, II

 

American industrialist and head of Ford Motor Company for 34 years (1945–79). He is generally credited with reviving the firm.

 

In 1940 Ford left Yale University without graduating to join the firm founded by his grandfather, Henry Ford, and at the time run by his father, Edsel Ford. A year later he joined the U.S. Navy; but in 1943, following the unexpected death of his father, he was released from duty and became a Ford vice president. After what amounted to a crash course in industrial management, he succeeded to the presidency of the ailing company in 1945.

 

He promptly set about modernizing the Ford Motor Company and discharged the all-powerful personnel chief Harry Bennett, whose strong-arm union-busting tactics had earned the company a great deal of opprobrium. He brought in a group of talented systems analysts from the U.S. Air Force who became known as the “Whiz Kids,†among them Robert S. McNamara, later to become Ford's president. One of the cars introduced during Henry II's tenure, the Edsel, was a legendary failure, but two others, the Mustang and the Thunderbird, were immensely popular and are widely considered to be classics. By the mid-1950s Henry II had restored the company to financial health, and subsequently he greatly expanded Ford's operations in overseas markets.

 

 

So the point of the original poster is still a potentially valid one.

 

-Ovaltine

Edited July 22, 2006 by Ovaltine

[RichardJensen]

Wikipedia entry is wrong. Ford's Service Department had existed for years before it became HF's Praetorian guard, and Harry Bennett was the defacto #2 before the UAW made any serious inroads at GM and Chrysler.

[DSenstad]

The main guy is now Mark Fields...show me where your sentence is true in his history, or take it back.

Mark Fields does not oversee every employee who works for Ford, there are a lot of good and bad people who sit in offices inbetween Fields and the floor.

 

Richard, not everyone is trying to pursuade people when they make a comment, nor are they trying to have a conversation with you. For a person to beef about the last few people who have lead Ford is natural considering the state of the company. I don't want a bean counter running Ford, I want a car guy with business savy and a bean counter as his right hand man. I don't want figuares to dictate direction but it must have a role. You can disregard this if you want as it is merely an opinion or a preferance if you like.

[DCK]

Y'know, I may come across as a passionate defender of the status quo at Ford. I'm not, really. I'm just passionate about logically constructed arguments that are supportable by independently verifiable facts.

 

It's something that I learned to care about while getting a 'worthless' liberal arts degree.

 

I mean maybe that's not why you're here. Maybe you don't care about the quality of your arguments. Maybe you just want to vent your spleen. Go ahead. But for cryin' out loud, don't be surprised if I stop taking you seriously.

 

You want to prove something? Prove it. Do the research. Find facts. Support your assertions. Stop assuming that the rest of us will be persuaded to believe assertions that you cannot be bothered to support by verifiable facts.

Was there something i said that wasn't true? I believe when you leave a vehicle on the lot for 10-15 years with the same sheetmetal and minor changes I considered it pretty much murdering a vehicle.........you try to defend it which i just don't get.

[Footballfan]

But it is not the company itself. Just a reminder to be accurate in statements like 'Fields is not fit to run the entire company'.

 

As to the adjustments to the "Way Forward" plan, there's a Freep article that discloses the dramatic falloff in pickup sales this year, and Ford management discernment that these buyers are not delaying purchases, they're leaving the segment.

 

This development has caught the entire industry off guard, but it is especially critical that Ford adjust to it ASAP.

 

Once again, the question is posed: What should Ford have done with this new information? Ignored it, or responded to it?

 

Rapid response to market shifts are something that analysts have been demanding for years. Then, all of a sudden, when it actually happens, they don't know what to make of it.

 

But why isn't GM and Chrysler panicking like Ford is? Also, as I mentioned diversifying the lineup is great, but over the past seven or eight years, it has been starve and abandon. Mark my words, when the "revised" Way Forward plans come out, it is more likely you hear will hear just how they are going to close plants like Twin Cities (sooner than ,08), and perhaps Lousiville and Michigan Truck to react to the shift in demand as opposed to converting some of its SUV plants to make additional crossovers like the Edge, the streteched Edge, and Fairlane, or coming out with entirely new product to counter the shift. This will send more customers fleeing to other brands.

[RichardJensen]

But why isn't GM and Chrysler panicking like Ford is? Also, as I mentioned diversifying the lineup is great, but over the past seven or eight years, it has been starve and abandon. Mark my words, when the "revised" Way Forward plans come out, it is more likely you hear will hear just how they are going to close plants like Twin Cities (sooner than ,08), and perhaps Lousiville and Michigan Truck to react to the shift in demand as opposed to converting some of its SUV plants to make additional crossovers like the Edge, the streteched Edge, and Fairlane, or coming out with entirely new product to counter the shift. This will send more customers fleeing to other brands.

Well, GM has eliminated like, what? 10 plants worth of employees with their buyouts. Chrysler management is out of touch, and I don't think they're going to close Louisville. What makes sense to me is consolidation of Ranger and Explorer production at Louisville, and a faster timeline for closing Norfolk and re-implementing F150 production at MTP. We may also see Ford broaden the reach of their voluntary buyout programs.

[sparks will fly]

Uh oh..... it looks like someone needs to brush up on their Ford history! You're confusing the Deuce's post-WWII "Whiz Kids" with Henry's goon squad headed by Harry Bennett.

 

BIIIIGGGG difference!

 

By the time the "Whiz Kids" came, the UAW was already in at Ford.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Auto_Workers

 

The UAW's next target was the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford had promised that "The UAW would organize Ford over my dead body." Ford selected Harry Bennett to keep the union out of the company, and the Ford Service Department was set up as an internal security, intimidation, and espionage unit within the company, and quickly gained a reputation of using violence against union organizers and sympathizers (see The Battle of the Overpass). It took until 1941 for Ford to agree to a collective bargaining agreement with the UAW. ( Note: The "Whiz Kids" didn't arrive until 1946.... post war!" )

The "Whiz Kids" disassociation with union busting is also confirmed here:

http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9034844

Henry Ford, II

 

American industrialist and head of Ford Motor Company for 34 years (1945–79). He is generally credited with reviving the firm.

 

In 1940 Ford left Yale University without graduating to join the firm founded by his grandfather, Henry Ford, and at the time run by his father, Edsel Ford. A year later he joined the U.S. Navy; but in 1943, following the unexpected death of his father, he was released from duty and became a Ford vice president. After what amounted to a crash course in industrial management, he succeeded to the presidency of the ailing company in 1945.

 

He promptly set about modernizing the Ford Motor Company and discharged the all-powerful personnel chief Harry Bennett, whose strong-arm union-busting tactics had earned the company a great deal of opprobrium. He brought in a group of talented systems analysts from the U.S. Air Force who became known as the “Whiz Kids,†among them Robert S. McNamara, later to become Ford's president. One of the cars introduced during Henry II's tenure, the Edsel, was a legendary failure, but two others, the Mustang and the Thunderbird, were immensely popular and are widely considered to be classics. By the mid-1950s Henry II had restored the company to financial health, and subsequently he greatly expanded Ford's operations in overseas markets.

So the point of the original poster is still a potentially valid one.

 

-Ovaltine

 

I think Henry was in business before WWII and he had a company plan BEFORE Harry Bennett. Harry's goons and Ford's plans changed after WWII but his plan was not to strayed from before the war.

[Footballfan]

Well, GM has eliminated like, what? 10 plants worth of employees with their buyouts. Chrysler management is out of touch, and I don't think they're going to close Louisville. What makes sense to me is consolidation of Ranger and Explorer production at Louisville, and a faster timeline for closing Norfolk and re-implementing F150 production at MTP. We may also see Ford broaden the reach of their voluntary buyout programs.

 

I still think that GM and Chrysler are still far ahead of Ford when it comes to new product- the look and the pace at which they are introduced.

 

I hope that you are right about MTP and Louisville- I really think that MTP is in the endangered list.

[RichardJensen]

I still think that GM and Chrysler are still far ahead of Ford when it comes to new product- the look and the pace at which they are introduced.

 

I hope that you are right about MTP and Louisville- I really think that MTP is in the endangered list.

Expy and Navi are moving to T1 this year, and Ford is already closing a T1 plant.

 

I wouldn't put Chrysler ahead of Ford in product launches, because perceptually we lump the D3s together, and the CD3s, while separately talking about the Charger, 300, Magnum, Compass, Patriot, Caliber. With GM, we forget that GM has 3 more NA brands to nurture than Ford. Include Volvo, LR, and Mazda into the Ford new product portfolio and things look differently.

 

Furthermore, Ford's 'customer first' strategy really is revolutionary. It's the revolution that should've accompanied Padilla's quality initiatives that were the primary thrust of the first restructuring.