Ford Mustang: Detroit Talking And Walking Like They Can Win

Interesting reading....


TOM WALSH: Detroit can believe - and win

August 29, 2003

BY TOM WALSH
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Enough already.

Are you tired of hearing about the fabulous Toyota production system,
the great Honda engines, the superb German engineering of Mercedes and
BMW? The unbeatable quality of Lexus?

Yeah, me too.

I don't believe for a minute that assembly line workers in Wixom or
Detroit are inferior to assembly line workers in Japan, Germany,
Georgetown, Ky., or Marysville, Ohio. And I don't believe that
engineers in Tokyo or Bavaria are smarter than engineers in Warren or
Dearborn.

But I wonder . . .

Do the hourly workers and engineers and designers at General Motors
Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group believe
their companies are as good as Toyota, Honda, Nissan and BMW?

I suspect not.

Many GM, Ford and Chrysler workers, judging from my e-mail, don't
believe they play on teams as good as their main rivals. And it's no
wonder.

I've sat in the offices of GM executives who proudly display Toyota
logo-wear as a sign of the superior performance that their own troops
should emulate.

I read in my own newspaper that Chrysler's top labor negotiator says
the southern United States factories of Toyota, Nissan, BMW and others
have superior business models.

I've watched hangdog Detroit auto executives shrug like henpecked
husbands as Wall Street analysts scold them about incentive costs and
extol the efficiencies of their competitors.

Enough already. It's time to stop with the hand-wringing and the
apologizing. It's time to go kick some butt.

This is not some jingoistic call to rally Team USA. And I mean no
disrespect to Toyota, Honda, BMW, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Hyundai.
They're entitled to play on our continent if we play on theirs.

Those companies deserve our respect. They should not, however, be
treated with reverence or held in awe.

Could the Red Wings have won those Stanley Cups if the players treated
Patrick Roy and other opposing goalies with reverence and awe? Could
the Detroit Pistons have won those 1989-90 titles by revering the
Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers as unbeatable foes?

No, of course not. In order to win, a team's coaches and players must
believe they can win. And they must talk and walk like they can win.

One company steps up
Thankfully, GM is starting to flex some butt-kicking muscle. (Forget
about Ford and Chrysler for now; Ford is only midway through a massive
restructuring and DaimlerChrysler is still in a post-merger identity
crisis).

GM leaders aren't talking or walking too boldly yet; they're like a
woozy boxer just risen from the canvas after a knockdown. But they are
no longer ashamed of themselves or their company name.

Just 13 years ago, the new Saturn brand was pitched as everything its
stodgy parent GM was not -- friendly, flexible, modern. The GM
affiliation was seen as a liability, not an asset. But that's
changing.

About three years ago, CEO Rick Wagoner started asking his own people
what the GM brand stood for. They had no clue, collectively. Since
then, GM has quietly, but rigorously, gone about forging a concept for
the corporate brand that comes down to three words: Powerful, Engaging
and Dynamic. Every vehicle GM builds should bring those words to mind.
Every TV ad, every auto show display should evoke the same words.

After Sept. 11, 2001, when the "Keep America Rolling" campaign of
no-interest loans caught the public imagination, the notion took hold
that heavier marketing use of the GM brand name could boost sales of
the individual vehicle brands.

GM won't talk about the size of its ad budget, reportedly around $200
million last year, except to say that it's growing.

From GM's 24-hour test drive ad campaign earlier this summer to the
mid-August rollout of its revamped www.gmbuypower.com Web site, the
company is clearly wielding the GM corporate brand more forcefully as
a tool to drive customers into Chevy, Cadillac and other showrooms.

After a long decline, GM has made major strides in quality improvement
and customer and dealer satisfaction. Those gains, and aggressive
rebates, helped boost GM's market share the past two years.

In a newspaper and magazine ad campaign this summer dubbed "Road to
Redemption," GM apologizes for its three decades of wandering in the
automotive wilderness and invites long-lost customers to return.

OK, we get it. Detroit's automotive leadership isn't in denial
anymore.

But enough already with the apologies. Enough already with all the
fawning praise of Toyota and the other transplants.

If GM wants to remain the world's largest automaker, if Ford and
Chrysler and the UAW want to survive and thrive, they need to talk and
walk like they believe they can win.

Patrick
'93 Cobra
'83 LTD

Victor DiMichina opined in news:com:


 

Excuse me! That Honda engine is built rat'cheer in Ohio.

Here's the story on it.

http://www.saturnfans.com/Cars/Future/poweredbyhonda.shtml

 

Yes it is... but it's probably too expensive for domestic installation.. and
since my father and two brothers, as employees of Frigidaire-then-Harrison,
built the A/C compressors for LOTS of cars OTHER than GM, I know that there
are TONS of reasons why GM might rather buy outside.


Production #'s before Quality, "Quality Circle" meetings being a joke,
millwrights NOT listening to line workers' suggestions on die setup (ran up
against THAT one myself when I worked at GM) Overinfluential Unions
protecting rights of drug dealers in plants rather than acting as an
intermediary for employees with REAL gripes...

It goes on and on.