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Joined: Jun 2001
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Originally posted by XKontour98:
Right on! Man I havent heard Muda since my last Lean Manufacturing class! Ohno would be proud!
plus a little Deming mixed in
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Joined: Feb 2003
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Hard-core CEG\'er
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Quote:
Toyota isn't a standstill entity. It has a constantly evolving and growing product portfolio that Ford cannot anticipiate with certainty all the time.
And neither can Toyota anticipate Ford all the time. Granted, it doesn't have to as much as Ford does, but it still needs to. The success of the 'boring' Five Hundred in the Boomer market was unexpected by Toyota. The success of the 'awkward' Freestyle was also unexpected and practically kickstarted a new segment of the industry.
"Taking on" a company doesn't mean that you fight them toe-to-toe in every segment, coming up with a car to counter their every move. You can "take on" a car company without touching a segment they even deal with -- in fact that's probably the best way to go about it.
And why do Domestics have to respond to the Imports? If anything, time and time again, Domestics are the ones that innovate and the Imports copy them (and tend to perfect the technology in the process).
In the Truck market, domestics dominate in sales and development. In the SUV market, domestics dominate/d in sales/development. In the minivan market, imports were kicking ass, but the domestics (namely Chrysler) did most of the innovating with the driver-side doors, fold-flat seating, DVD integration, etc. In the car market, there hasn't been significant innovation in probably 10 years by anyone.
Imports have never really been known for incredible leaps in innovation. They rarely pioneer totally new technologies and even more rarely pioneer new market segments. They just take what they've seen others do and perfect it.
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I'll pose a scenario: Ford comes out with a midsize to be their Camry fighter, they do a pretty good job in doing so and they come out to market with it. Toyota with their quick refresh cycles comes out with a newer, better Camry -- all of a sudden Ford's Camry fighter is left in the dust quickly obseleted.
Ford already has come out with a Camry fighter -- it's called the Ford Fusion. And it has done incredibly well. Previews of the 2007 Camry haven't been incredibly glowing, with a significant percentage of the buyers turned off particularly by the looks. Will it blow the Fusion away? It's too early to tell, but it's doubtful that it will be "quickly obsoleted", as the new Camry is offering very little over the old.
Ford will also be reducing product cycles from over 4 years to just 3 years -- on par with the best imports. At most, the new Camry will only have 2 years on the Fusion, and then the next Fusion will have 1-2 years on the Camry. It's a give and take that has always existed.
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Ford and GM need to attach those horse blinds to themselves. They need to just get down to work, trim the fat and focus on making their products as best they possibly can.
That thinking is about 50% of what got them where they are in the first place -- not looking at what the competition is doing that is working (The other 50% would be not caring what the consumer really wanted in the first place).
Let's say you make TVs. And you make some decent CRT televisions. But then HDTV comes around, and the popularity of various flat-screen technolgies take-off and your competition is kicking your ass while you scrape buy on the fogeys that are too stuck in their ways to buy anything buy a CRT.
Do you sit there and work on making "the best CRTs that money can buy" or do you go "Damn, my competition is kicking my ass with flat-screens. I better take a look at that technology and how I can get into that and take them on".
Making your products the best that you can isn't going to get anyone to buy them if they don't want them. It's clear that there's a LOT more than making the "the best product you can" to getting people to buy a Ford product. Ford and GM have outranked most Imports in quality and reliability in surveys for many, many years. But people still aren't buying them. Obviously "making the best ones they can" isn't going to solve their problem.
Making the best damn Fusion you can doesn't make people buy a Fusion over a Camry. Figuring out why they love the Camry and putting those features into the Fusion and making it the best damn Fusion you can, is what it takes to make people buy one. And that's exactly what Ford did and why it's selling so well.
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In addition is breeds a corporate mentality of "good enough". You've beaten Toyota (or your competitor) so what do you do ? You sit on your laurels and dont' move forward.
You'd be right if that was Bill Ford's mentality and FoMoCo was on top. But it's anything but. Corporate visions and missions change. Constantly. When you're down and you're getting your ass kicked, your mentality becomes "we're going to take everyone else on until we come out on top". And how do you do that when you make cars? You make the best damn cars you can make.
Again, one mentality doesn't preclude the other, in fact they're mutually inclusive. Do you think Toyota got to where it is by just making a reliable car? No. It sat down, looked at a Ford Taurus which was kicking its' ass at the time, and said "We can do that. And we can do it better." And they did. And they looked at the full-sizes Americans love like the Crown Vic, and they said "We can do that better." And made an Avalon. And they looked at Detroit's trucks and said "We can do that better" and made the Tacoma. And they looked at how Domestics were kicking ass with SUVs and they said "We can do that too, and do it better", and they made the 4Runner.
They did that. And they kept doing that until they were #1 (not #1 in sales yet, but #1 in growth).
2003 Mazda6s 3.0L MTX
Webpage
2004 Mazda3s 2.3L ATX
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Joined: Jul 2003
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Originally posted by Th_m_s:
I heard that Ford is doing well selling Focus cars overseas. They don't count that as income here in the U.S.
I like how they're saying "a version" is made in the US... yeah... the OLD version! heh.
The other day, I pulled up behind a new US spec "ST" Focus. I was thinking in my head that the US crowd wanted a version of the Euro ST, but the engineers lost their budget, so just put the ST tags on a slighty more sporty base end Focus 
Would be funny if Ford USA went under and Ford Europe saved them by... bringing all the cars that can meet EPA/NHTSA regs. Hmmm... new Mondeo... Focus C-MAX...
Last edited by Big Daddy Kane; 01/26/06 06:25 PM.
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Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 540
Veteran CEG\'er
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Originally posted by MapOfTaziFoShoâ�??¢:
Squarehead...unions have destroyed this country! They were a benefit for a pretty long time...beg of the 20th century, but in the past 20-30 years they have become so greedy that many and most US companies cannot afford to keep plants within the US. I will say this again...having a job is better than no job. 
It's the same story for the company whom I work for - the union "workers" (hint: high sarcasm here) are worthless. There numbers have dwindled here, and the funniest part is they are too stupid to understand why. UAW = U Ain't Workin'
'98 SVT Red/midnight blue - a few mods
E0 wheels for sale - PM me
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Joined: Feb 2003
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Hard-core CEG\'er
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Hard-core CEG\'er
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Originally posted by Th_m_s:
I heard that Ford is doing well selling Focus cars overseas. They don't count that as income here in the U.S.
http://www.autospectator.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2958
It's counted as income, all Ford subsidiaries throughout the world is counted, just not as North American income. That's why Ford is actually profitable even though Ford in North America is hemmoraging money.
Ford is actually a very popular brand in Europe and is the Number One brand in the UK.
2003 Mazda6s 3.0L MTX
Webpage
2004 Mazda3s 2.3L ATX
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Joined: Aug 2000
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Hard-core CEG\'er
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The other problem is that you are trying to count on the car buying public making rational intelligent decisions. Toyota's success is overwhelming proof that a large proportion of the car buying public is frightfully stupid.
It shows that many people are willing to pay a premium price for an basic appliance that delivers nothing extra to the ownership and driving experience.
I do believe that you should only pay limited attention to the competition and build your own product and make it the best possible. I certainly do not want anyone to emulate the Camry, no matter how many people are dumb enough to buy it.
Brad "Diva": 2004 Mazda 6s 5-door, Volcanic Red
Rex: 1988 Mazda RX-7 Vert, Harbor Blue.
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