redkow97 Posted November 1, 2011 Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 I'm not unwilling to give Ford credit for identifying and addressing their financial problems earlier than GM, but they both fell into essentially the same traps.To be fair to both auto makers, the UAW forced their hands in many respects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beegreenstrings Posted November 2, 2011 Report Share Posted November 2, 2011 This is funny, my dad just called me and was like... "did you know there was a company making these". I was like yeah found out about 72 hours ago. Dad: did you look up the company? No but I can if you want.Dad: hell yeah I would like to have a new toy. Go figure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casper Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 What you said: An energy subsidy or other govt subsidies aren't handouts? I'll have to remember that.And you'll have to explain the funny... funny haha funny? Funny because its true funny? When 90%+ of your manufacturing business comes from the big 3, and 40% of that vanishes overnight... you don't believe that would've affected Ford?If I price widget 'A', say a door hinge assembly, on a production run of 3M parts a year, and all of a sudden 1.2M parts ordered are cancelled, you don't think that'll have an impact on the revenue I'd lose, the price per piece of what I sell to Ford now, or the fact that I might not even be able to afford the payments of my labor, lease, and equipment when they are only running at 60% the operational effectiveness? I'd be better to just file bankruptcy, close shop, and walk away with what I have.But Ford will just find another supplier of door hinges right? If they're smart, which they probably are, they likely already have 2 or 3 separate suppliers for key components - ya know, a supply base diversification strategy. The door hinge probably isn't one of those 'key' components, but let's say it is... good luck getting the other suppliers to ramp up to those kind of production levels overnight. The demand planner would shit bricks. And, you're probably sharing those OTHER suppliers with GM too... so they're in the same boat as the first scenario.So, just start fresh right? Lucky for you, when GM forced me to go bankrupt with my last company, I repurchased all those assets back from the bank for pennies on the dollar, renamed the company, and fired it right back up. It just took a few weeks. What do you think it costs Ford to idle their production line when they don't have the right parts? Its on the scale of Millions of dollars per HOUR. Try doing that for 4 weeks.Last scenario I can imagine is starting fresh with a new supplier. With the timeline and cost it takes to make production tooling, PPAPing, and meeting the stringent quality standards of automotive OEs... that'll be an even greater economic penalty than if you lucked out going back to a 'renamed' supplier post-bankruptcy.So, I still don't get the funny What I heard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disclaimer Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 Exactly my point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casper Posted November 8, 2011 Report Share Posted November 8, 2011 Exactly my point.Yup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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