wathomas
Aluminum
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2006
- Location
- detroit mi
I admit I can not express an objective opinion. I have been in Detroit since 1990 and have been a supplier to GM, Ford and Chrysler. I have enjoyed working on many powertrain development projects even though my contributions have been small I have been part of those development teams and have observed and been part of the sincere efforts to make world class products. I wouldn't trade that time because I value the experiences and each lesson learned about people and equipment and systems. Meanwhile for years as I traveled for vacations and even when I met with family members scattered from Kentucky, Florida, Rhode Island, Arizona and Texas I listened to the criticisms and was the butt of jokes about GM, Ford and Chrysler..stories told and repeated and embelished mostly way removed from the source. Stories told of bad practices, ineffciencies, poor quality...I wish I had been more outspoken but usually I considered them mostly harmless and didn't put up a proper defense but just shrugged them off. I can't do a really good job expressing or making a case ...don't have all the facts at hand to mount a defense but urge you to read a story by Peter Brown on staff at Automotive News. Since this is an Indusrty publication and I don't think the web site for the full story will link without the reader having a subscription...but it does allow individual emails to be forwarded I hope it is OK to quote it in full. Our forum is diverse and has shown an ability to fairly discuss a lot of topics...I hope this will benefit as I know I have not done enough to express myself in the past on the subject of these companies and the people that work there.
Did you hear the one about Ford not making cars here anymore?
Peter Brown
Automotive News
December 17, 2008 - 4:11 pm ET
We all know lots of things that are flat-out wrong. Did you know, for instance, that Ford Motor Co. doesn't manufacture in America anymore? Lots of people know that, and all those people are 100 percent wrong.
The things we know but that happen to be wrong are one of the problems with politics, as we saw with the ignorant members of Congress as they pontificated in front of the Detroit 3 CEOs. It's also a problem of free-flowing information and misinformation on the Internet.
And it's a big problem for the Detroit automakers. Americans, and their congressional representatives, know lots of stuff about the Detroit 3 that is simply wrong.
So here's a story, with a joke. Sometime in the past 15 years, you may have read this joke in a circulating e-mail. The basic outline is that an American company and a Japanese company had a canoe race. (The complete joke is at the bottom of this column.)
The Japanese, with lots of rowers, win. So the bureaucratic Americans start adding layers of management and taking out rowers, and they get beat worse with each race and each reorganization, which includes more bonuses to American management.
Well, I got this e-mail joke from a buddy last week. In this version, the American company was Ford and the Japanese company was Toyota.
It's actually a pretty good joke. But at the end, the e-mail states the following:
"Sadly, the End.
Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last 30 years moving all its factories out of the U.S., claiming they can't make money paying American wages.
Toyota has spent the last 30 years building more than a dozen plants inside the U.S. The last quarter's results: Toyota makes $4 billion in profits while Ford racked up $9 billion in losses.
Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses."
Well, I didn't send chuckling congratulations back to my friend. Here's what I sent him and the whole group who had received it from him:
"This is a cute old joke, originally told about 'an American company and a Japanese company.'
"The 'facts' at the bottom, however, are utterly false, and destructive to boot.
"As a manufacturer, Ford is far more important to this economy than is Toyota, which still imports half its cars sold here from Japan.
"Year to date, Toyota has assembled roughly a million vehicles in North America, including Mexico, U.S. and Canada. This is just half of the more than 2 million cars and trucks it has sold in the U.S., and less than half the cars it has sold in all of North America.
"Meanwhile, Ford has made more than 2 million cars and trucks in North America, slightly more than it has sold in the U.S.
"Apart from Volvo, Ford imports ... nothing. And the cars Ford makes here have a higher North American parts content than do Toyota's cars (or Honda's or Nissan's). The notion that Ford has 'spent the last 30 years moving all its factories out of the United States, claiming they can't make money paying American wages' is simply 100 percent false." (One of the problems of the Internet is a falsehood is spread just as easily as a virus.)
"Ford has 11 vehicle assembly plants in the United States. Toyota has three open and is building another. (The opening of that plant is now on hold because of sluggish Prius sales.)
"I don't understand why everybody wants to dump on these companies that employ Americans, pay for their health care and pensions, and support communities all over the Midwest."
OK, I was a sorehead who killed the joke for my friends. Unfortunately, I can't kill e-mail that is circulating like Asian bird flu. And people think they know that Ford gave up on manufacturing in America.
Here's the joke:
A Modern Parable
A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Two-Hearted River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.
Their conclusion was the Japanese had eight people rowing and one person steering, while the American team had seven people steering and two people rowing.
Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid it a large amount of money for a second opinion.
The consultants advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.
Not sure of how to use that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to four steering supervisors, two area steering superintendents and one assistant superintendent steering manager.
They also implemented a new performance system that would give the two people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the Rowing Team Quality First Program, with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale-boosting programs and teamwork posters.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles.
Humiliated, the American management laid off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the senior executives as bonuses.
The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles), so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was outsourced to India.
Did you hear the one about Ford not making cars here anymore?
Peter Brown
Automotive News
December 17, 2008 - 4:11 pm ET
We all know lots of things that are flat-out wrong. Did you know, for instance, that Ford Motor Co. doesn't manufacture in America anymore? Lots of people know that, and all those people are 100 percent wrong.
The things we know but that happen to be wrong are one of the problems with politics, as we saw with the ignorant members of Congress as they pontificated in front of the Detroit 3 CEOs. It's also a problem of free-flowing information and misinformation on the Internet.
And it's a big problem for the Detroit automakers. Americans, and their congressional representatives, know lots of stuff about the Detroit 3 that is simply wrong.
So here's a story, with a joke. Sometime in the past 15 years, you may have read this joke in a circulating e-mail. The basic outline is that an American company and a Japanese company had a canoe race. (The complete joke is at the bottom of this column.)
The Japanese, with lots of rowers, win. So the bureaucratic Americans start adding layers of management and taking out rowers, and they get beat worse with each race and each reorganization, which includes more bonuses to American management.
Well, I got this e-mail joke from a buddy last week. In this version, the American company was Ford and the Japanese company was Toyota.
It's actually a pretty good joke. But at the end, the e-mail states the following:
"Sadly, the End.
Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last 30 years moving all its factories out of the U.S., claiming they can't make money paying American wages.
Toyota has spent the last 30 years building more than a dozen plants inside the U.S. The last quarter's results: Toyota makes $4 billion in profits while Ford racked up $9 billion in losses.
Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses."
Well, I didn't send chuckling congratulations back to my friend. Here's what I sent him and the whole group who had received it from him:
"This is a cute old joke, originally told about 'an American company and a Japanese company.'
"The 'facts' at the bottom, however, are utterly false, and destructive to boot.
"As a manufacturer, Ford is far more important to this economy than is Toyota, which still imports half its cars sold here from Japan.
"Year to date, Toyota has assembled roughly a million vehicles in North America, including Mexico, U.S. and Canada. This is just half of the more than 2 million cars and trucks it has sold in the U.S., and less than half the cars it has sold in all of North America.
"Meanwhile, Ford has made more than 2 million cars and trucks in North America, slightly more than it has sold in the U.S.
"Apart from Volvo, Ford imports ... nothing. And the cars Ford makes here have a higher North American parts content than do Toyota's cars (or Honda's or Nissan's). The notion that Ford has 'spent the last 30 years moving all its factories out of the United States, claiming they can't make money paying American wages' is simply 100 percent false." (One of the problems of the Internet is a falsehood is spread just as easily as a virus.)
"Ford has 11 vehicle assembly plants in the United States. Toyota has three open and is building another. (The opening of that plant is now on hold because of sluggish Prius sales.)
"I don't understand why everybody wants to dump on these companies that employ Americans, pay for their health care and pensions, and support communities all over the Midwest."
OK, I was a sorehead who killed the joke for my friends. Unfortunately, I can't kill e-mail that is circulating like Asian bird flu. And people think they know that Ford gave up on manufacturing in America.
Here's the joke:
A Modern Parable
A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Two-Hearted River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.
The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.
Their conclusion was the Japanese had eight people rowing and one person steering, while the American team had seven people steering and two people rowing.
Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid it a large amount of money for a second opinion.
The consultants advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.
Not sure of how to use that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to four steering supervisors, two area steering superintendents and one assistant superintendent steering manager.
They also implemented a new performance system that would give the two people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the Rowing Team Quality First Program, with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale-boosting programs and teamwork posters.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles.
Humiliated, the American management laid off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the senior executives as bonuses.
The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles), so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was outsourced to India.
