FORD MOTOR COMPANY CASE SOLUTION
INTRODUCTION
Ford Motor Company was founded by Henry Ford in 1903, in Dearborn, Michigan. It is one of three leading automotive manufacturing companies in United Sates and grew to reach revenue of more than $144 billion with 370,000 employees and operation spanned 200 countries. In the 1970’s, the automobile market for the major auto-makers, General Motors (GM), Ford and Chrysler was crunched by competition from foreign manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda.
The automakers faced the need to continue to improve quality and reduce cycle time while dramatically lowering the developing cost and looking for ways to take advantage of their size and global presence since the industry was fast becoming global. One element that helps them in achieving this is to become the biggest automaker and Ford has announced to acquire Sweden’s Volvo. There was a need to change in accordance to fast technology changes in order to have advantage over other automakers.
Ford’s Director of supply chain system intended to change to virtual integration model in Ford supply chain and has used Dell as the benchmark for the change. However, there are difference in Dell and Ford operation and network system that need to be taken into consideration.
FORD 2000
Ford has come up with restructuring and reengineering plan by merging its North American, European and International automotive operation into a single global organization called Ford 2000. This is done in order to reduce the cost and globalizing corporate organizations and processes. By globalizing the processes Ford intended to eliminate organizational and process redundancies and realize huge economies of scale in manufacturing and purchasing. This new global approach required new technology in order to overcome the geographical constraints in information flow. Teams from different continents needed to be able to communicate with each other easily and all information need to be spread easily and received by all parties.
Since the
Ford Motor Company was founded by Henry Ford in 1903, in Dearborn, Michigan. It is one of three leading automotive manufacturing companies in United Sates and grew to reach revenue of more than $144 billion with 370,000 employees and operation spanned 200 countries. In the 1970’s, the automobile market for the major auto-makers, General Motors (GM), Ford and Chrysler was crunched by competition from foreign manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda.
The automakers faced the need to continue to improve quality and reduce cycle time while dramatically lowering the developing cost and looking for ways to take advantage of their size and global presence since the industry was fast becoming global. One element that helps them in achieving this is to become the biggest automaker and Ford has announced to acquire Sweden’s Volvo. There was a need to change in accordance to fast technology changes in order to have advantage over other automakers.
Ford’s Director of supply chain system intended to change to virtual integration model in Ford supply chain and has used Dell as the benchmark for the change. However, there are difference in Dell and Ford operation and network system that need to be taken into consideration.
FORD 2000
Ford has come up with restructuring and reengineering plan by merging its North American, European and International automotive operation into a single global organization called Ford 2000. This is done in order to reduce the cost and globalizing corporate organizations and processes. By globalizing the processes Ford intended to eliminate organizational and process redundancies and realize huge economies of scale in manufacturing and purchasing. This new global approach required new technology in order to overcome the geographical constraints in information flow. Teams from different continents needed to be able to communicate with each other easily and all information need to be spread easily and received by all parties.
Since the
Bibliography: Kaplan, M. C. (n.d.). Ford Motor Company:Supply Chain Stratgy. Bogazici University. Operation Management. (2014). Singapore: McGraw-Hill Education. The Power of Virtual Integration: An Interview with Dell Computer’s Michael Dell. (1998). Harvard Business review. Trakselis, J. (2000). M. Wood Company. Retrieved Noivember 25, 2014, from http://www.mwoodco.com/value/ecommerce.php