Thread regarding Ford layoffs

They identified interfaces that needed to be managed but it was more like a checklist alongside a recap of past failures -- "whatever you do don't do this, don't do that, ....".

There was some work identifying systems decisions BIC competitors had made in areas we were struggling. This was really helpful but was a large workload on our CAE folks.

@wga+1nimYyMO The need for systems engineering has been discussed since the mid to late 1980s. I know they put together a system design but it sounds like it hasn't given the gains that were hoped for.

Agreed that good systems engineering is important and really hard to get consistently right, at least at Ford.

At GM they used to sit people close together where good interfaces between their components needed to happen. Simple idea but they were proud of it and it got written up in the Harvard Business Review.

@lsg.

Many tests do not serve as indicators for quality/reliability. Passing or failing do not mean much. This showed in competitor bench mark. High quality/reliable competitor vehicles frequently failed Ford tests. It is impossible to separate positive with false positive.

If PDL contents were all in place at the beginning of the vehicle program, there would not have a program. The program would not be affordable. So people cheated and it worked every time. At the end, vehicles are over cost and over weight. TVM comes next.

The LL5-LL2 spent lots of their time in coming up with well written PPT such that all the issues can be hidden and agreed to be hidden. This is how they define their R&R in the process. At the end, they can fool themselves but not the customers.

System engineering is just not the focus at the startup of the program. Late changes are all patches. You can't tell which are good and which are bad because you run out of time. You are only looking for the out-of-jail card to put the patches into the vehicles.

• Corporate wanted to get rid of the test fleet because our competitors didn't need one (2018). Documentation of the hundreds of issues discovered by the test fleet shocked the leadership team.
• Late changes disguised as Program Direction (PDL) changes caused a distrust of the PD organization. There was a mutual lack of respect between Prototype and Engineering (Engineering couldn't get the design right, Prototype was too d-mb to organize the builds in an efficient manner).
• Program issues were hidden from leadership reports until there was so little time left that it was likely the changes would not be done in time.
• Hundreds of late changes, many were made with the final design being so contained that good solutions needed miracles to happen.

They see a problem as having 25% to many engineers. But they has twice as many executives than GM, which is more then two times bigger. So 400% more executives , but that is not the problem.

The C-suite doesn’t’ know, and they know they don’t know. So they hire a consulting firm to tell them. Enter BCG, who also doesn’t know, but for a multi-million dollar fee are happy to pontificate and produce graphs, charts and reports for the C-suite. The C-suite then implements the plan (careful to omit the trim the # of executives part). If anything goes wrong, they blame the consultants. If things go horribly wrong they sue the consultants.

Boiled down - all the plans assume all employees with title XYZ are equivalent. Therefore, removed all the expensive XYZ. But as the saying goes. Every School Boy Knows The Premise Is False.

Sure there are way more than 25% engineers who could be cut - the engineers in name only clan comprised mainly of FnF. The plan typically retains these employees.

Now for one of the most comical things I have heard from an exec. A youngster was shadowing an exec and asked why they needed consultants, could they just ask the people doing the work? The response was that he couldn’t trust any information that flowed bottom up to him, that it was distorted by the time the information reached him. The youngster said well why don’t you just ask the individuals doing the work directly? Long pause, followed by that is not the done thing.
That interchange pretty much captured most of Ford’s issues.

Who is Farley to know how much engineering resource needs to go into a product? I did not know he had a secret engineering background. The companies he compares against only have one or two product lines that sit in a narrow bandwidth of capability. He cannot see beyond his nose. Just more excuses to deflect that his plan is utter garbage and he does not know what he is doing. Picking the colors of the marketing brochure does not make you qualified to run a $150B engineering/mass manufacturing firm. The only skill that got him here was kissing Billy’s and Elena’s a-s and systematically eliminating all of his opponents. Remember: Mullally is the reason we are stuck with this dud, he himself could not see through his bullsh-t

Not to mention we have 25% F&F / DEI deadwood..

It would be nice if he came down to the working level and figured out WHY that is. Would take less than 30 minutes to realize our processes are broken and we have 3 people tracking for every one person actually working.

First I wish everyone at Ford well, and if cuts occur that all land on their feet.

I'm a ge---r class career long engineer that transitioned to managing talent mid career. I've been involved with outsourcing and it's middling results, and I have long been an advocate for internal career development. I've lived through the slogans and the trends, in the end people are everything. Read on.

What is always undervalued is the value of experience. I've seen it happen again and again. Oddly the C-Suite values experience and seems to think that's the only place it really matters. Well, history pretty clearly shows that they've got it backwards. It's easy to make money and drive dividends in an up market, Anybody can do that.

In a history making time involving depletion driven fuel alternates, we're talking about real change. Some in the mobility sector will get this wrong and mercilessly be dispatched to obscurity, some will get it right and preserve their role. Don't get me wrong - depletion in a pretty slow decline and eventual economic reality that will force alternative fuels in the next 20 years... the sky isn't falling, but take notice - change is a part of life and this is no different.

Intelligent, creative, tenacious and nimble employees in the entire company from top to bottom are what you need. Failure to establish that culture - well that's on management - or mismanagement. 100%.

I see Ford as having its future tied to the successful navigation of these historically unusual times. In the end the people with those traits mentioned above matter a whole lot, they are priceless. Simply out sourcing to a cheaper labor rate is beyond stupid, because this time things are different and I sincerely hope that's not the idea. But then again, if the C-Suite and the major stock holders don't have those attributes it's anybodies guess as to if luck will become the default determining factor on staying around.