Reply #106: They have a better position because they have been more forward thinking.... [View All]

[PassingFair]

Mainly thanks to Bill Ford.

Here is an article from 2004.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4843708

snip>]

Idea is to spread concept
“Should these concepts play out from an economic standpoint, and we believe they will, you’ll see us start to roll them out to other plants,” chairman and chief executive Bill Ford said in an interview. “If the Rouge is only an interesting showpiece, it will have failed. I’d like to see it run for a year before we make any judgments.”

Bill Ford announced plans five years ago to transform the complex from a landscape of slag and soot into “a model of 21st Century sustainable manufacturing.” He stuck to that goal even while the nation’s second-largest automaker went through one of its most dire periods, losing more than $5 billion in 2001 and another $980 million in 2002.

“I thought this was going to be known as Bill’s Folly or something,” Ford said. “And I think early on some of the old-line industrial guys thought it was madness. But what was interesting was to watch the metamorphosis and the naysayers not only become believers, but how quickly it became theirs.”