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Iacocca's leadership style
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The Ford Pinto Case Evaluating the Ford Pinto Case by taking an ethical approach, makes judging the decisions made on a cost-benefit analysis difficult. Cost-benefit analysis puts a price on human life and compares it to the cost of a something else. To judge this case, a look at separate consequences must be made, weighing the good and bad results of an action on everyone affected by it (DeGeorge, 2010, p. 44). Ford’s production of the Pinto was not done in an illegal manner. However, Ford ignored morally relevant events that ultimately led to the Pinto’s controversial safety record. Ford Motor Company CEO, Lee Iacocca, was concerned about losing market sales to smaller Japanese imports. Therefore, he ordered Ford to produce a new car line in an accelerated manner, which …show more content…
A little piece of plastic could be placed between the gas tank and the housing to protect the tank from the bolts that could puncture it. This little piece of plastic is called a baffle. The baffle weighs about one pound and had an estimated cost between $6.65 and $11. Additionally, this increase in price and weight would alter the specifications set forth by Iacocca. Furthermore, changing any aspect of this vehicle would affect output capacity and pricing. For this reason, any suggestions of alterations to the Ford Pinto were declined. Ultimately, Ford rejected any change to the Pinto and based its decision on a cost-benefit analysis. In order for this analysis to work, Ford had to compare the cost of adding the baffle to every vehicle manufactured against the estimated cost of a fatality and corresponding law suit. According to Dowie (1977), the auto industry pressured the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, to come up with a dollar amount of what a human life was worth. The amount of $200,725 was the result and Ford used this amount to justify not making the
Henry Ford’s development of the single and unchanging automobile model meant the possibility to concentrate upon a single cheap car for the masses. When The Ford Company began to make Model C for $900, Model F for a thousand, and Model B for two thousand, the profits began to drop more and more each year and progress was being made backwards. The Ford factory was taken control over by Henry who stopped the production of
The Ford Motor Company (FMC) was founded in Detroit in 1903 and began shortly thereafter exporting cars to European branches. Cross-border assembly started in Canada in 1904 and was later implemented in the European markets. The first European plant was established in 1911 in England, and this was followed with other lower volume assembly plants across the European continent. All the plants and branches assembled and sold the Model T, using American methods and practices. This proved to be a success in the beginning, but in the long run, “(…) this proved a costly and unsuccessful strategy in Europe’s diverse markets” (Bonin et al., p. 15). By the late 1920s most of its European subsidiaries were struggling and Ford had to change his approach to the European market.
Henry Ford wanted to build a high-quality automobile that would be affordable to everyday people. He believed the way to do this was to manufacture one model in huge quantities. Henry Ford searched the world for the best materials he could find at the cheapest cost. During a car race in Florida , Ford examined the wreckage of a French car and noticed that many of its parts were made of a metal that was lighter but stronger than what was being used in American cars. No one in the U.S. knew how to make this French steel a vanadium alloy. As part of the preproduction process for the Model T, Ford imported an expert who helped him build a steel mill. As a result, the only cars in the world to utilize vanadium steel in the next five years would be French luxury cars and the Model T. Ford realizes he needs another efficient way to produce the cars in lower prices. Ford saw what he was missing was 4 principles that would help with the Model T which was interchangeable parts, continuous flow, division of labor, and reducing wasted
Henry Ford1863-1947Henry Ford's parents left Ireland during the potato famine and settled in the Detroit area in the 1840s. Ford was born in what is now Dearborn, Michigan. His formal education was limited, but even as a youngster, he was handy with machinery. He worked for the Detroit Edison company, advancing from machine-shop apprentice to chief engineer. In 1893, Ford built a gasoline engine, and within a few years, an automobile, still a novelty item of the rich or do-it-yourself engineers. In 1899 Ford left Edison to help run the Detroit Automobile Company. Cars were still built essentially one at a time. Ford hoped to incorporate ideas from other industries -- standardized parts as Eli Whitney had used with gun manufacturing, or assembly line methods George Eastman tried in photo processing -- to make the process more efficient. This idea struck others in his field as nutty, so before long, Ford quite Detroit Automobile Company and began to build his own racing cars. They were good enough to attract backers and even partners, and in 1903, he set up the Ford Motor Company.He still met resistance to his ideas for mass production of a car the average worker could afford. But he stuck to his goal and finally in 1908, began production of the Model T. Ford gradually adapted the production line until in 1913, his plant incorporated the first moving assembly line. Demand for the affordable car soared even as production went up: before Ford stopped making the model T in 1927, 15 million had been sold, and Ford had become the leading auto manufacturer in the country. In addition to the moving assembly line, Ford revolutionized the auto industry by increasing the pay and decreasing the hours of his employees, ensuring he could get enough and the best workers. During the Model T era, Ford bought out his shareholders so he had complete financial control of the now vast corporation. He continued to innovate, but competitors (growing more powerful though fewer in number) began to cut into Ford's market share.Ford became interested in politics and as a successful and powerful business leader, was sometimes a participant in political affairs. In 1915, he funded a trip to Europe, where World War I was raging. He and about 170 others went -- without government support or approval -- to seek peace.
As per request of the first assignment of this course, I watched the movie “A Civil Action” starring John Travolta (Jan Schlichtmann), as a plaintiff’s lawyer and Robert Duvall (Jerome Facher) and Bruce Norris (William Cheeseman) as the defendant’s lawyers of W.R. Grace and J Riley Leather companies. The movie depicted the court case fought in the 1980’s among the previously mentioned companies and the residents of Woburn a little town located in Massachusetts. After watching the movie, an analysis using the ethical tools reflected in the chapter 1 of the course textbook will be used to portray the ethical issues of the movie.
Foreign markets were beginning to show promise with the vehicles that were going to put out on the market. The Ford Motor Company began to feel the pressure and felt that it needed to be in the limelight of the competition. Lee Iococca, the CEO of Ford, decided that it was time for a change and thus the Ford Pinto was introduced. However, the Pinto had numerous flaws that cost the Ford Company more than ever anticipated.
Ford’s concept of an assembly line sprang from the thought that a car could be produced much quicker if each person did one, single task. He applied this in his Highland Park plant, and cut down production time of one Model T to a fraction on the time. The carefully timed pace of a conveyer belt moving the parts along further speeded the process. With these new tactics, a factory could produce 40%-60% more cars per month. By late 1913 he had established assembly plants in Canada, Europe, Australia, South America, and Japan. At this point, the Ford Motor Company was the largest manufacturer of cars in the world.
There was strong competition for Ford in the American small-car market from Volkswagen and several Japanese companies in the 1960’s. To fight the competition, Ford rushed its newest car the Pinto into production in much less time than is usually required to develop a car. The regular time to produce an automobile is 43 months but Ford took 25 months only (Satchi, L., 2005). Although Ford had access to a new design which would decrease the possibility of the Ford Pinto from exploding, the company chose not to implement the design, which would have cost $11 per car, even though it had done an analysis showing that the new design would result in 180 less deaths. The company defended itself on the grounds that it used the accepted risk-benefit analysis to determine if the monetary costs of making the change were greater than the societal benefit. Based on the numbers Ford used, the cost would have been $137 million versus the $49.5 million price tag put on the deaths, injuries, and car damages, and thus Ford felt justified not implementing the design change (Legget, C., 1999). This was a ground breaking decision because it failed to use the common standard of whether a harm was a result of an action on trespass or harm as a result of an action on the case (Ferguson, A., 2005).
Ford Motor Company has been and till the date is known as the king of innovations in the automobile industry. Their research & development department and innovation of interchangeable parts in moving assembly lines resulted in extraordinary global extension for them. They are an old heritage who ruled and still doing impressive jobs in the global automobile market. Some prestigious motor brands are also owned by Ford.
4) Viral-Quotient per Content (Any Media) - Most popular YouTube video was viewed 200,000 times. On an average, a video was viewed 1600 times. This builds upon the idea of Customer engagement, and Content distribution in the social space, that relates heavily to the very purpose of such a campaign. Also, this entire communication was user-generated, so the message didn’t look, at least to say, to be coming out in the form of ‘Company Promotion’.
After a year of engineering Iacocca discovered that it was not what he wanted to do with his life, he wanted to be in sales. Ford agreed, which was the start of a very successful venture for Iacocca and the Ford Motor Company. Through many years of hard work, Iacocca was promoted to top management. This is where he found himself living his dream. He never wanted to leave work at the end of the day and could not wait to go back the next morning. Although Iacocca was doing very well and could not be happier, the Ford Motor Company was going through hard times. General Motors was really hurting Ford in sales and in innovations. In the late 50's and early 60's Ford produced cars that were just not selling and were real failures in the industry. Iacacco knew something had to be done, and he convinced president and CEO Henry Ford Jr. that he was the man to do it. Through many months of close arduous work with Ford's design team, Iaccoca came up with the Idea of the Mustang.
Schmidtz writes that the greatest problem with cost-benefit analysis is that it allows for some people to be sacrificed for the greater good, and thus may call for some violation of morals (154). Similar to Nussbaum’s idea of a tragic situation, Schmidtz agrees that one may have to make a decision that will ultimately require a violation of someone’s morals, but contrary to Nussbaum, Schmidtz claims that one can use cost-benefit analysis to determine which option will violate the morals of only some rather than all. Another limit of cost-benefit analysis that Schmidtz brings up is that it may not be easy or even possible for a decision maker to consider every possible externality: “Even if we know the costs and benefits of any particular factor, that does not guarantee that we have considered everything. In the real world, we must acknowledge that for any actual calculation we perform, there could be some cost or benefit or risk we have overlooked” (162). Schmidtz acknowledges that human decision makers cannot possibility account for every single external cost, but he does claim that this limit can be accounted for if the decision is opened to the public for scrutiny. For Schmidtz, public deliberation of a decision is a practical way for a decision maker to account for the most externalities to avoid moral
Ford’s production plants rely on very high-tech computers and automated assembly. It takes a significant financial investment and time to reconfigure a production plant after a vehicle model is setup for assembly. Ford has made this mistake in the past and surprisingly hasn’t learned the valuable lesson as evidence from the hybrid revolution their missing out on today. Between 1927 and 1928, Ford set in motion their “1928 Plan” of establishing worldwide operations. Unfortunately, the strategic plan didn’t account for economic factors in Europe driving the demand for smaller vehicles. Henry Ford established plants in Europe for the larger North American model A. Their market share in 1929 was 5.7% in England and 7.2% in France (Dassbach, 1988). Economic changes can wreak havoc on a corporation’s bottom line and profitability as well as their brand.
The Brand New Ford Mustang 2017 has just been unveiled as a luxurious racing sports car with a superb dashing look for customers. This super trendy and sporty urban innovative sedan provides an ultimate pleasure and exhilarating speedy fun ride experience for the keen racing enthusiasts. It has been built with a front engine, rear wheel drive and presently comes up with more versatile and durable body style variations such as 2-door coupe sedan, 2-door hatchback, 2-door fastback, and a 2-door convertible sedan for catching a noticeable instant bold attention of customers at a first glance. This term Mustang refers to the meaning of free roaming wild feral horse of the Spanish origin.
The decline in Profit margin in 2014 was because of their less revenue in the North American market where they make good margins with their larger vehicles as shown in Figure