Henry Ford's Success Of The Ford Motor Company

Much of Henry Ford’s success at building an empire now known as Ford Motor Company started out with his failures at Detroit Automobile Company. DAC was much more. Henry Ford did not let any of the cars to go into production unless he was sure that the process was perfect. Investors lost confidence him and competition took over. DAC’s first product a gasoline powered delivery truck was slow, heavy, unreliable and difficult to manufacture. Henry Ford recalled this period as one driven by profit rather than innovation. This moulded his mind to strive for innovative production processes, rather than just seeing from a financial perspective

DAC folded in 1901. Ford Motor Company started out in 1903 backed by 12 investors and 28000$ cash in Detroit,

Ford introduced assembly line production, which led to more number of cars being produced. It also expanded in a huge scale and became one of the most profitable companies of the world.

The key to success was a strategy known as Vertical Integration. Ford eliminated the bottlenecks created by the inconsistency of the suppliers by introducing in-house production. Though Ford has grown by leaps and bounds, it primarily still remains a family owned company with 40 percent of the voting rights still resting with the Ford family.

Ford revolutionized the industry by making the gasoline powered automobile affordable for the middle class in 1913. The economies of scale approach were taken up by the company. The first moving assembly line was introduced in 1913 at its factory at Highland Park. The major breakthrough being the “Ford-T Model”, which sold in millions.

It was not until 1927, when Ford reconsidered replacing its T model. Ford then tried to attract more of the middle class customers by addressing issues of safety. The newly launched A model was equipped with a safety glass

The retiree health care cost was removed from the main balance sheet so that it could be handled more effectively. In 2007 Ford reached a historic agreement with 46000 hourly workers. The agreement also gives hourly workers the job security they were seeking by having the company commits to substantial investments in most of its factories.

The automaker reported the largest annual loss in company history in 2006 of $12.7 billion. On June 2008, Ford lost its Jaguar and Land rover brands to TATA Motors. During the 2008 crisis, Ford was given a shot in the arm by the government. Lincoln is one of the remaining luxury car option provided by Ford.

In 2010 ford and Mazda joined hands to exchange technological information and stat joint ventures. Ford owns a 2.1% stake in Mazda of Japan, an 8% stake in Aston Martin of the United Kingdom, and a 49% stake in Jiangling of China. Ford is the second-largest U.S.-based automaker (preceded by General Motors) and the fifth-largest in the world based on 2010 vehicle sales. At the end of 2010, Ford was the fifth largest automaker in