rperez817 Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 2 hours ago, 7Mary3 said: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-06/ford-has-25-more-engineers-doing-same-work-as-rivals-ceo-says And yet Ford's warranty costs continue to climb ever higher. Bill Ford's patience must be wearing thin..... Most definitely 7Mary3. But then again, both Bill Ford and Jim Farley understand that Ford Motor Company's dysfunctional corporate culture goes back almost 120 years to when the company was founded. Now in addition to getting the company fit (completing the work that Jim Hackett started), they have to completely re-invent the company amid the ongoing automotive industry revolution. Fortunately, Jim Farley is a good businessman and as Ford's CEO should be up to this monumental task. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tarheels23 Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 1 hour ago, rperez817 said: Most definitely 7Mary3. But then again, both Bill Ford and Jim Farley understand that Ford Motor Company's dysfunctional corporate culture goes back almost 120 years to when the company was founded. Now in addition to getting the company fit (completing the work that Jim Hackett started), they have to completely re-invent the company amid the ongoing automotive industry revolution. Fortunately, Jim Farley is a good businessman and as Ford's CEO should be up to this monumental task. I was part of turning a company around, this was over 30 years ago, from a manager/dictator whose idea was to make everything so complicated that everyone would think he was a genius. I was asked to take over for him even though I maybe knew 30% as him as he wanted to always be the smartest in the room. We began by eliminating as many steps from his procedures and recipes, this was a textile dyeing co., and getting everyone's help. One of the biggest steps was being sure everyone could admit to their mistakes, the local workforce, to be sure we fixed the right problem. We described it as rebuilding a bridge why standing on it. The average formula had mayge 8 to 13 dyes and maybe took 6 to 12 hours to complete. We eventually had no formulas with more than 4 dyes and most only 3 and dye cycles reduces by over 60%. It took us 2 years but was completely successful but only when upper management bought in. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 Warranty costs were close to $4B for both 21 and 22. Still way too high but down just a little in 22. The big special items were Quote We recorded $12.2 billion of pre-tax special item charges in 2022, driven by a $7.4 billion mark-to-market net loss on our Rivian investment and a $2.7 billion impairment on our Argo investment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 1 hour ago, akirby said: Warranty costs were close to $4B for both 21 and 22. Still way too high but down just a little in 22. The big special items were Which begs the question… why the hell are they still investing in Rivian? What could they possibly be getting out of it at this point? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 51 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said: Which begs the question… why the hell are they still investing in Rivian? What could they possibly be getting out of it at this point? They’re not. It’s residual from the original investment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paintguy Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 27 minutes ago, akirby said: They’re not. It’s residual from the original investment. Ouch. Reminds me of J. Nasser. After he was let go from Ford, Bank One hired him, saying he had great experience with acquisitions. Believe anything he ever bought was sold pennies on the dollar. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Rosadini Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 4 hours ago, Chrisgb said: "Thank you for your feedback. Your contributed suggestion will be analyzed carefully by the applicable team members for consideration to implement your idea(s) in a future product or process. Due to the shear volume of suggestions, proposals, and submissions, please understand that we simply cannot respond to you directly." -The Management Well if in fact this is a Ford response, better than nothing...universal to all Ford plants or a particular Plant mgrs way of doing things? Getting line employees involved is key..who knows better when a process is f'd up. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rperez817 Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 3 hours ago, tarheels23 said: We described it as rebuilding a bridge while standing on it. That's an excellent analogy for both the turnaround effort at the company you worked for 30 years ago, as well as for Ford Motor Company in 2023. Thanks for sharing your experiences tarheels23. They fit in nicely with this thread's theme of "accountability starts at the top". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mackinaw Posted February 7, 2023 Author Share Posted February 7, 2023 3 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said: Which begs the question… why the hell are they still investing in Rivian? What could they possibly be getting out of it at this point? Ford sold 91 million shares of Rivian last year (about everything). The initial investment was about 1.2 billion dollars and they sold their remaining shares for $3 billion. Actually a pretty good return on their investment. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/03/ford-sold-most-of-its-rivian-stake-last-year.html#:~:text=Ford liquidated most of its,the EV startup in 2022. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrisgb Posted February 7, 2023 Share Posted February 7, 2023 16 hours ago, Chrisgb said: "Thank you for your feedback. Your contributed suggestion will be analyzed carefully by the applicable team members for consideration to implement your idea(s) in a future product or process. Due to the shear volume of suggestions, proposals, and submissions, please understand that we simply cannot respond to you directly." -The Management Quote 11 hours ago, Bob Rosadini said: Well if in fact this is a Ford response, better than nothing...universal to all Ford plants or a particular Plant mgrs way of doing things? Getting line employees involved is key..who knows better when a process is f'd up. It is not a Ford Motor Company response AFIK. I made it up as a satire on the form response that "surface employees" got initially when submitting suggestions when I worked at Whirlpool Corp. in the late 60s-early 80s. Truth be told, many employee submissions were implemented at least partially. But the corporate first response was canned, and I presume it is a common practice in other very large businesses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7Mary3 Posted February 8, 2023 Share Posted February 8, 2023 On 2/6/2023 at 8:11 PM, mackinaw said: Ford sold 91 million shares of Rivian last year (about everything). The initial investment was about 1.2 billion dollars and they sold their remaining shares for $3 billion. Actually a pretty good return on their investment. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/03/ford-sold-most-of-its-rivian-stake-last-year.html#:~:text=Ford liquidated most of its,the EV startup in 2022. It was a very good move, and a great time for Ford to get out. Rivian and their ilk may be clobbered in the coming BEV price war. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamweasel Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 On 2/6/2023 at 6:24 PM, rperez817 said: Most definitely 7Mary3. But then again, both Bill Ford and Jim Farley understand that Ford Motor Company's dysfunctional corporate culture goes back almost 120 years to when the company was founded. Now in addition to getting the company fit (completing the work that Jim Hackett started), they have to completely re-invent the company amid the ongoing automotive industry revolution. Fortunately, Jim Farley is a good businessman and as Ford's CEO should be up to this monumental task. The only thing Hackett started was trouble....he was a terrible fit for the company and they are still trying to fix a lot of the crap he did. Every single Ford friend I have hated him. Farley is quickly losing faith and credibility with most of the internal folks at Ford that I know. Farley has no experience on how to fix the biggest issue that supposedly needs fixing at Ford: Quality. That is a massive problem along with him talking crap about an issue he has no idea on how to solve. The only way that works is if he hires the right people who have that expertise but as of right now that is not happening. Think of it this way, Farley was the superstar offensive coordinator of a football team who got hired to be the head coach. After he becomes coach, the offense is still great but the defense is horrible because the new offensive-minded head coach has no idea how to coach that side of the ball. That's basically what's happening here...... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvrsvt Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 3 hours ago, iamweasel said: The only thing Hackett started was trouble....he was a terrible fit for the company and they are still trying to fix a lot of the crap he did. Every single Ford friend I have hated him. Farley is quickly losing faith and credibility with most of the internal folks at Ford that I know. Farley has no experience on how to fix the biggest issue that supposedly needs fixing at Ford: Quality. That is a massive problem along with him talking crap about an issue he has no idea on how to solve. The only way that works is if he hires the right people who have that expertise but as of right now that is not happening. Think of it this way, Farley was the superstar offensive coordinator of a football team who got hired to be the head coach. After he becomes coach, the offense is still great but the defense is horrible because the new offensive-minded head coach has no idea how to coach that side of the ball. That's basically what's happening here...... The problem appears to be since Mullay has been around is that the internal structures of Ford are the problem and short of breaking the company up or doing a major reorg its not going to get fixed. 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 47 minutes ago, silvrsvt said: The problem appears to be since Mullay has been around is that the internal structures of Ford are the problem and short of breaking the company up or doing a major reorg its not going to get fixed. Remember when Hackett talked about restructuring and I opined that he didn’t go deep enough? Yeah….. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamweasel Posted February 9, 2023 Share Posted February 9, 2023 1 hour ago, fuzzymoomoo said: Remember when Hackett talked about restructuring and I opined that he didn’t go deep enough? Yeah….. Everyone I know says Hackett made it worse. Build a bunch of cross functional teams that just muddied the water, slowed things down, and made it hard to hold people accountable. Many of my friends would jokingly refer to the # of additional bosses they had now and how there were too many cooks in the kitchen on everything, which just paralyzed the process. They said nobody was in charge and there were constant debates on everything to get a consensus from the bosses which then slowed everything down. (Which made things get behind so everyone was rushing to stay on track leading to errors/bad decisions along the way.) In Farley's defense, he is trying to fix some of that but he does lack the know-how to do that with Engineering so that's why that area is under focus right now. Issue is not as pronounced with Marketing & Sales, anymore, for instance, because Farley understands that side of the business plus that is a smaller group to handle, too. Engineering is a massive operation that takes longer to re-arrange things / make an impact. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 9 hours ago, iamweasel said: Everyone I know says Hackett made it worse. Build a bunch of cross functional teams that just muddied the water, slowed things down, and made it hard to hold people accountable. Many of my friends would jokingly refer to the # of additional bosses they had now and how there were too many cooks in the kitchen on everything, which just paralyzed the process. They said nobody was in charge and there were constant debates on everything to get a consensus from the bosses which then slowed everything down. (Which made things get behind so everyone was rushing to stay on track leading to errors/bad decisions along the way.) I heard similar things from someone very close to me who ended up just saying screw it and retired. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmc523 Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 Maybe/hopefully the BEV side can be set up differently/more efficiently. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 47 minutes ago, rmc523 said: Maybe/hopefully the BEV side can be set up differently/more efficiently. I think that was the idea behind model E being a separate division. We’ll see how they execute on that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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