Ford to take aggressive stance on costs

[Marc]

Ford to take aggressive stance on costs

FRANKFURT ( Reuters ) - Ford Motor Co., the No. 2 U.S. automaker, will take an aggressive approach to cost controls under a restructuring plan expected to be announced later this year, a senior executive said on Wednesday.

"We have to be very aggressive in terms of controlling costs," Chief Operating Officer Jim Padilla told reporters at the Frankfurt auto show.

"We will be aggressive. We will address costs. We will address our footprint as a business. We will address capacity."

Ford is yet to announce a turnaround plan for the North American auto unit and has said it was working on more restructuring moves to halt deep losses in its North American operations.

Ford has not ruled out deeper job cuts in its salaried workforce or a closure of manufacturing plants.

Padilla declined to be drawn on the company's talks with the United Auto Workers union, but said Ford was closely watching the situation between the union and its U.S. rival General Motors over the future of troubled parts supplier Delphi Corp.

"The Delphi situation has the shortest fuse. We have been watching the dialogue with GM," he said.

Ford last week announced a management shake-up designed to stem deep losses in North America.

Strong competition, soaring health-care and raw material costs, and a slide in U.S. market share have forced Ford to slash its profit forecast twice this year.

Padilla said the company was taking a more aggressive approach on design and had a strong pipeline of new products.

"We do see stability coming," he said.

But Mark Fields, executive vice president of Ford in Europe, said he could not put a date on when the automaker's UK-based luxury brand Jaguar would start making a profit.

Ford has said previously it expected Jaguar to break even in 2007. "We are not going to put a date on when Jaguar will return to profitability," Fields said.

On Tuesday, he said Ford was starting to see savings at Jaguar from headcount reductions and from closing the Brown's Lane Jaguar plant at Coventry in the English West Midlands this year.

[tarheels4]

Originally Posted by Marc

Ford to take aggressive stance on costs

This sounds like a money losing venture.

Automotive
Ford to take back 23 Visteon facilities
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs...ESS02/50914012

[asutherland]

GM, Ford employee discounts fizzle in Canada
Employee discounts for everyone lost their luster in Canada for General Motors and Ford Motor Co. last month.

Not just losing money. Looks like losing market share as well.

[asutherland]

Ford makes electricity from paint fumes
Ford Motor Co. plans to use one of an auto plant's nastiest byproducts - paint fumes - to make electricity at its Michigan Truck plant in Wayne, Mich. Starting this month, equipment at the plant will turn emissions from its painting operations into electricity for the plant. -09/12/2005

This is a neat concept. I wonder if they can make a deal with Bush's baked beans as an alternate energy source. But then.... that might drop the stock of "TUMS".

[Bill Pflanz]

The most telling statement is "Ford has not ruled out deeper job cuts in its salaried workforce or a closure of manufacturing plants." That is a signal that a job cut announcement will be coming soon. They also signaled that they want union concessions and are letting GM set the standard for all. Typical union negotiations. They also are preparing employees for higher medical costs and suppliers for a demand for lower costs. Obviously they forgot the lessons of Deming. Maybe the plan is to work through all Fourteen Points and do the opposite.

I wonder if the "management shake-up" will be part of the job cuts. More than likely it will just be replacing one high paid executive with another and promises for changes. Their biggest problem is lost market share which will not necessarily be solved by anything in their statement.

Bill Pflanz

[Wes Bucey]

So! How will this latest development of picking up money-losing plants add to the current fix Ford is in vis a vis costs?

Visteon to transfer 17 plants, other facilities to Ford

Associated Press
Published September 14, 2005



DEARBORN, Mich. -- Ford Motor Co. will take unprofitable plants back from auto parts-maker Visteon Corp. under definitive agreements announced Tuesday.

The transfer of 17 plants and six offices, research centers and other facilities in the U.S. and Mexico to Ford, Visteon's former parent, is expected to take place Oct. 1, the companies said in a statement.

Under the $550 million deal announced in May, a temporary, Ford-managed business entity called Automotive Components Holdings LLC will take control of the plants and other facilities. Visteon will lease about 5,000 salaried employees to the new company, which also will absorb 18,000 hourly employees at Visteon facilities and about 70 Ford salaried employees.

The transfer was approved by 88.7 percent of United Auto Workers members in 15 affected plants. Ford expects to eventually offer severance packages to 5,000 of the hourly workers represented by the UAW.

The deal is meant to guarantee parts supplies to Ford plants while Automotive Components Holdings prepares to sell most of the facilities.

Ford accounts for almost two-thirds of Visteon's business. Visteon, the nation's second-largest auto-parts supplier behind Delphi Corp., has blamed its financial woes on production cuts at Ford, lower prices for parts and high labor costs it inherited after being spun off from Ford five years ago.

[Craig H.]

Let's see... Automotive Components Holdings has unprofitable Visteon plants for sale, and the buyer gets to supply Ford, who has a declining market share? Wow, I bet folks are lining up already!

[qualitygoddess]

Considering Ford has had to recall 3.8 million trucks and SUVs to fix a major problem with the cruise -- as in fires can start when the vehicle is just sitting around, I'm sure their warranty costs have gone up significantly!