A Former Student and Long-Time Ford Employee Comments on How to Turn the Auto Industry Around in the U.S.

Hi folks, I recently received a well thought out comment from a former student of mine who has worked for Ford Motor Company for quite some time. What follows is his email:

Hello Profesor Heitmann. I'm a UD alumni who took your excellent History of Science class back in 1988, and wanted to comment on your recent comments/insights on the automotive industry.

For most of my career I've worked at Ford Motor Company as a purchasing manager for various electronic systems and advanced vehicle technologies. I agree with many of your comments re: industry leadership, vision, management changes needed etc. However, as you know, Japanese/Korean/German OEM's are heavily subsidized by their governments -- both indirectly through universal health care to workers and directly in advanced battery research, hybrid technologies, etc. (e.g. Japanese MITI is extremely active in funding Toyota directly.) We cannot make apples-to-apples comparisons between Toyota and GM/Ford without at least considering the overall context, culture and philosophies governing each OEM's business strategy and constraints.

The solutions must include strong government/industry partnership and vision like we have for the defense industry. Would anyone disagree the U.S. leads the world in defense systems? Why do we lead here? ..because we decided to and mobilized government, industry and academia on common goals, projects, and investments. Other nations are beating us in automotive by applying our own integrated and holistic approach to defense industry planning. Laissez faire capitalism and CEO changes alone are not the answer. Other nations are integrating the best of all philosophies - lest I say some degree of socialism - to optimize the welfare of their automotive industries.

John Coyne
BEE, 1988

I responded to John by stating that my seven weeks in Germany convinced me that government involvement in the industry is not a bad thing, if the culture is such that the organizational linkages function efficiently and that creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit is fostered. In Germany for example, the head of the Cluster for East Germany automobile manufacturing spoke to us while we were at BMW, and it was clear that the various companies with manufacturing facilities in the former GDR were working together on issues of suppliers and labor. But German mentalities are quite different from those in the U.S., and thus I am concerned about how the government involves itself in the operations of the Detroit Three. I still believe that it is wrong to look to government for answers to major problems, and indeed it can often function as an institution to create and perpetuate problems rather than solve them. And the folks who are engaged in the defense industry, by all accounts, tend to be quite different than the rest of government in terms of social philosophy.