Bill Ford: "My Goal Is To Fight Toyota"

[Perian]

From an interview in this weeks Time® magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/

"Bill Ford is so committed to the environment that his office is decorated with biodegradable curtains and carpets. He sits at his uncle Edsel's old desk, near a photo of himself breaking boards to earn a black belt in Taekwondo. His favorite car: Mustang. He recently spoke with TIME's Dorinda Elliott and Joseph Szczesny. Excerpts:

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE? To restore a sense of confidence, externally and internally, in the company.

HOW DO YOU CHANGE YOUR CORPORATE CULTURE? Interestingly, this doesn't require a tremendous amount of change to our culture. Innovation is going to be the driving force of this company going forward. But the good news is, that is very much the history and the culture of this company, all the way back to the Model T and the assembly line.

WHEN YOU TOOK OVER AS CHAIRMAN, NOT EVERYBODY LIKED YOUR IDEAS. It was hard to get alignment within the company. It was the system that had developed over many years and the people who were running various departments. I was perceived perhaps as a bit of a Bolshevik early on.

NAIVE WAS ONE OF THE WORDS. Well, yes. Let's see who's naive now. But when you have a company that grows up over 100 years, there are a lot of strengths that come with that, but there's a lot of baggage too, including a propensity to look backward more than look forward. We're very proud of our history, but it can't be what defines us going forward.

DOES BEING HENRY FORD'S GREAT-GRANDSON MAKE CHANGE EASIER? Perhaps there is something to that. This is a long-term path we're on. I'll be around here for probably the rest of my life. I may not always be CEO. But I'm not leaving the Ford Motor Company. I care deeply about what this place looks like in 20 to 30 years.

CAN YOU SAVE THE COMPANY ON YOUR OWN? Absolutely not. If you look at the big issues that face our industry--whether it is health care, global warming, energy dependence, pensions--the problem I have is, each one of those issues requires both tremendous national [and] international cooperation. There's no way any one company can provide answers to any of them unilaterally.

DO YOU HAVE TO REINVENT THE RELATIONSHIP WITH AMERICAN LABOR? We are at a pivotal point.

HOW CAN WORKERS CONTINUE TO MAKE $65 AN HOUR WHEN THE CHINESE ARE DOING IT FOR $2 AN HOUR? There's an opportunity in this country for high-value, high-intellectual-content work to be done. I think of things like hybrids and the next generation of hybrid systems and transmissions. But there's no question that for other parts of the work stream, it's going to become much more difficult to be a player in this country.

DO YOU HAVE TIME TO CATCH UP? We don't have a lot of time, but we're changing on the run. We've done it before, and we will do it this time.

ISN'T TOYOTA GOING TO RULE THE WORLD? No! My goal is to fight Toyota and everybody else and come out on top. I'm not ceding anything to Toyota. They're an excellent company, and they're a terrific competitor, but I look forward to taking them on."

[funkietowne]

I hope Ford doesn't go the way of K-Mart when they tried competing with Wal-Mart a few years back...

[lytmup]

You cannot compete with a $2 an hour labor rate.

It doesnt get any more plain than that. GM/Ford/ etc etc simply cannot compete with $2 an hour labor.

[mobyss]

Originally Posted by lytmup

You cannot compete with a $2 an hour labor rate.

It doesnt get any more plain than that. GM/Ford/ etc etc simply cannot compete with $2 an hour labor.

Where does Toyota use $2 per hour labor?

[goblue]

Ford (and GM's) opponent is not Toyota, its the UAW.

Both have now proven they can build a high quality automobile that can compete with any competitor - the problem is, they can't afford to. For both GM and Ford to prosper they will need:

1) Help from the UAW on costs and flexibility. Both need to be able to hire and layoff at will without the jobs bank, and pay a competitive wage with competitive benefits - allowing plants to run at 95% efficiency, and more money for better parts and features.

2) Both will need a buyout or assisitance of sorts from the government on pensions.

Both are on the edge right now of not being able to pay their costs due to dropping share and selling price. So, we as a country can pay a little now - or bail out the PBGC when both go bankrupt. And it will happen. All that has to happen is a few more points of marketshare loss, and neither can pay their bills, and will burn their cash reserves. This is already occuring.

The public is onto GM and Ford. They know they are getting a product that is cheaper, and built from less expensive parts. The public will not stand for it. GM and Ford need equal costs now to their competitiors.

Give them equal costs - and they will roar back with a vengence. Toyota and Honda cannot compete with an equal product in the US. Their product has to be better to overcome our collective desire to buy from an american company. Give them equal costs, and GM and Ford can build an equal or better car.

[Mr. Corporate Events]

On the same day Ford announces brutal cuts that hit at the pocketbooks and livelihoods of tens of thousands of REAL American workers (not the imaginary ones that Toyota publishes in their magazine ads), Japan sticks it to U.S. farmers by re-instating a ban on imports of U.S. beef. The funny part is, the article suggests that the Japanese have been EASY on the U.S.

Chutzpah is too mild a term to describe this nonsense.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060123/..._s__beef_blues

[BobLikesBunnies]

Ford has a mexico plant though might make 3$ an hour there. Ford has some nice cars out now though and there interior quality is a lot better now. He seems to be bringing the company where it needs to be.

[dindak]

Toyota can do no wrong in the eyes of the press and many others. Hard to compete with that.

[2648562]

We all lose when GM and Ford try to compete with that crap. Just build BETTER cars.

[lytmup]

Originally Posted by mobyss

Where does Toyota use $2 per hour labor?

im quoting from the article....." HOW CAN WORKERS CONTINUE TO MAKE $65 AN HOUR WHEN THE CHINESE ARE DOING IT FOR $2 AN HOUR?".....

Chinese workers are the $2 an hour labor. Just like Wal-Mart found out years ago when they tried hard to sell US made products only to learn that they couldnt if they wanted to stay in business. Just lilke Wal-Mart is an heavy investor in China, so will Ford be soon if they want to stay around.

[syr74]

Those who say Ford and GM cannot compete with cheap Chinese labor do not understand the concept of productivity. Think about it, are you really claiming that an uneducated Chinese laborer working at $1 a day can produce the level of quality or production an American worker can? Of course not, especially not if we could get realistic here in America. Bill Ford' comments today prove he understands this.

Unfortunately, the other side of this coin is workers within the UAW are typically drastically overpaid and all too often just lazy. Back when I was working for a large, tier one auto supplier I had to visit a few GM facilities. I have never seen so many people standing around looking stupid, and if I had to hear "that's not my job" one more time I might have snapped. I have never seen anything like it.

And that is saying something because even our veteran workers, who were not union but acted like it, were what I would call next to useless. Yes somebody on here is going to say "They gave that company the best years of their lives" Well, based on the amount of work they were turning out when I was there I am not sure a postitive term like best applies to anything they were doing. And unless I am mistaken that company was gleefully overpaying them for all those years so they needed to get off their lazy @#sses and do something.

What I truly don't understand is why Ford and GM put up with these UAW attitudes? The UAW is next to powerless now, so if I were Ford and GM I would center my workforce around right to work states, which would pressure other states to switch to right to work status no less, and tell people they can either work or get out. I would also like to se them switch to the kind of wage Nucor fastener uses. They know that American productivity is our advantage so they encourage the same.

Nucor's base wage is actually very low, but based on a very well thought out system of bonuses which are based on quality and production efficiency they manage to have the highest actual wage of any company in their segment and one of the highest actual wages in the manufacturing sector period. However, they also have something Ford and GM wish they had...productivity.

If it gives anyone an indication of how effective this was, they no longer have a quality control department as we would know it, the employees making the parts do this themselves. They were able to do this because their employees perform their own quality checks and reached the point where they were better than the QA teams.

Oh, did I mention that they are the stand alone premier manufacturer in their business and their quality is literally nowhere near being equalled? And who would have guessed it, but productivity is so good that you can't even buy the cheap Chinese imports for less. Ah, but the UAW is too smart for something like that.

[mobyss]

Originally Posted by lytmup

im quoting from the article....." HOW CAN WORKERS CONTINUE TO MAKE $65 AN HOUR WHEN THE CHINESE ARE DOING IT FOR $2 AN HOUR?".....

Chinese workers are the $2 an hour labor. Just like Wal-Mart found out years ago when they tried hard to sell US made products only to learn that they couldnt if they wanted to stay in business. Just lilke Wal-Mart is an heavy investor in China, so will Ford be soon if they want to stay around.

Ok, I thought the implication was that Toyota did.

GM now uses Chinese-made engines in the Equinox. Does GM pay the engine-suppling workers $2 per hour in China?

[rsbaker]

Originally Posted by lytmup

You cannot compete with a $2 an hour labor rate.

It doesnt get any more plain than that. GM/Ford/ etc etc simply cannot compete with $2 an hour labor.

Toyota/Honda/Nissan can't compete with $2/hour labor either.

[ChevroletRevived]

Well it seems that they are!
I say ''go Billy''. This is what we need. Ford needs to take Toyota head on. America needs to take Toyota on. Come on, America, let's back our companies. We are letting our livelyhood go down the drain when we buy foreign. Not to mention, we are increasing the deficit. Ford is taking bold action..with it's plans, and it's vehicles. (The more recent ones anyway). One thing is for sure though: the Big 2 desperatley need to shake of the UAW. That's the major issue for me....neither company can compete with health and labor costs like they have. Toyota doesn't have that handicap, and GM and Ford shouldn't have it either. They can't have it....

[Mr. Corporate Events]

Originally Posted by rsbaker

Toyota/Honda/Nissan can't compete with $2/hour labor either.

Toyota, Nissan, and Honda don't have to worry about large influxes of Chinese parts and vehicle imports into their home markets (or even Korean ones, for that matter). Remember, it's easier to play offense when you don't have to play defense.