A Modern Day Parable.

[FalcoColumbarius]

This was sent to me by a mate of mine and I thought I would share..........

"A Modern Day Parable"

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the
'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channelled into morale boosting programs and teamwork
posters.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses.

The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles), so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

Sadly,
the End.


Here's some thing else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results:

TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting
bonuses...


Falco.

[Duke]

Just to add to that.....

[Luna-Sea]

Nice one Falco!

Still it would still be nice to see the big 3 get their act together though.
Henry Ford in particular was an amazing guy. He did all kinds of work with hemp oils and lubricants, even fiber body panels made of the stuff.

He also did neat stuff like using the wood from the boxes parts were shipped in to make floorboars and panels. I am pretty sure it was him who created the concept of the modern assembly line.

This enabled him to pay wokers very well as production went way up.(though he was staunch anti-union) His assembly line model also helped greatly in the victory both world wars, though he himself was at heart pacifist.

I could go on and on about the guy and how he helped create a strong middle class and pride in american craftsmaship , but any one can wiki the guy. (not just for delicas I was shocked!)

How the mighty have fallen and strayed so far from the intended path.
So many good wokers being ursurped by greedy top-heavy managment..

Screw WVO ,if we could only harness the power of old Henry Ford rolling
around in his grave!
Right on
and Happy 4x4 ing
Holidays!
Good one too Duke would make a good T-shirt!

[The Pinkfingers]

Great parable.

[BCDelica]

The F-150 attracted 473,933 buyers this year, making it the No. 1-selling vehicle for 2008--it's been the best-selling vehicle in America for 27 years running. Another 431,725 buyers drove off Chevrolet lots in a Silverado.

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_c ... lling-cars

Perfect parable Falco.

[konadog]

Years ago when I was hunting for a 4x4 to replace my old VW bus I consulted the Consumer Report. There was a page of good used vehicles and a page of ones to avoid. The good page was all Japanese while the avoid page was all North American. I bought a Nissan and will never, ever buy a Ford, GM or Chrysler Love the Parable and the add. I sure feel bad for the thousands of people whose jobs hang in the balance, but maybe they can get jobs at Toyota or Honda. No need for unions there either. Funny how making quality products and fair and reasonable, non confrontational relations between management and labour seem to go together...

[RZ350]

So so very true. Sad too since I love me some Dodges. Ah well I've only ever bought one new car, and I almost never buy parts at the dealer. Guess I'm not really helping them, but then again maybe I would if I could justify the expense.
Anyway great parable.

[jrman]

Won't likely own domestic in the future either.
Had 6 domestic cars & trucks prior to a 2001 Toyota Sienna.....van still drives like the day we bought it new.
The other domestic cars (1 ford, 1 dodge, and 4 GM products) all showed poor workmanship within a short time after driving off the lot. A ford F250 had a $5000 rebuild of the entire diesel injection system just off warranty - drove it straight to New West Chev and drove away in a Cheyenne 1500 1/2 pickup brand new...pulled into my driveway - and the Chevy bow tie on the front fell off as I was walking to the front door....the list goes on and one....

In fairness, the Deli isn't treating me much better lately (leaking IP last month, leaking axle seal fixed once but back again, and just started leaking brake fluid behind the pedal) - but I do keep reminding myself of the age, and nothing major yet - just leaks of various forms!

[FalcoColumbarius]

RZ350, Fear not... if you buy a Dodge/Chrysler product... it likely has a Mitsubishi motor in it.

JR, when I first purchased the Miss Lil' Bitchi I was impressed with no leaks in the engine, apart from the turbo ~ but that is such a small leak and never makes it to the ground. Eventually I will overhaul everything to help keep her as new as possible .

Falco.

[InTheForest]

Thanks for the story. Well executed. Sure gets my goat. I don't know enough about any of it to offer any solutions but I do feel the sadness about products being created that the creator can't stand beside.

[mararmeisto]

Firstly, I think it's quite telling that there are literally hundreds (if not almost thousands) of us Canadians who would rather buy a +15-year-old vehicle from off-shore than a 'domestic' vehicle from southern Ontario.

I also find it funny when there is a news story lamenting another GM/Ford/Chrysler plant (either here or in the States), and how the workers/company are/is so proud of the vehicles they produce, only to watch for the shot of the parking lot to see how many 'other' vehicles are parked there. "Why yes, I am the plant manager, but I really like this Toyota something-or-another... it was a loaner car... got a good price, on sale... get that, dang it, get that camera outta my face... SECURITY!"

I have NEVER bought a NAPOS and I don't intend to any time soon. Too many disappointed friends. And for me, it's not the big things that are a turn-off (the faulty transmissions, the engine which dies just after the warranty runs out, the recalls on faulty passenger doors, et al). No, it's more the 'little' things: reversing lights that flash with the turn signal on a 2-year-old vehicle, trunk lids that don't line up after the first winter, dashboard arrangements that are absolutely horrible (like WHY is the light switch still on the dash as a big ugly rotary switch?!?), uncomfortable seats, crappy radios, oddly-angled steering wheels, seatbelts anchored too high/low, and my fingertips are getting sore from all the typing...

There are older NAPOS still on the road, yes, I acknowledge that, but I think there are far many more older import vehicles still on the road. All that being said, I am biased to the imports so I am probably much more critical when I go for rides in my friends' vehicles, especially when it's not a VW/Toyota/Nissan/Honda/Mitsubishi/Datsun (I've owned at least one of each).

Nice poster, BTW. I'm thinking of writing my Member of Parliament and asking for a refund for my share of the 4$ billion we Canadians are dumping into these sinkholes - I'm not happy with the product and want my money back. As I previously wrote to my MP that I would rather we gave the money to ZENN Motors, BC Electric Trucks, and/or changed the import rules to something like 5 years or less - he said would pass along the idea to the Transport Minister.

[Profister]

Here is the recent observation followed by a more creative proposal from my co-worker:

'All of this talk of auto industry bailouts has got people talking. One of the big mistakes FDR made back in the 30's was to let the horse and buggy industry fail in the face of rising competition from the auto industry. Imagine how much stonger our economy would be today if he had intervened to preserve that important industry.

In recognition of that here is a proposal on avoiding that type of mistake today: Since there is too much capacity in the auto industry and subsidizing the carmakers today won't guarantee that they can sell all the cars they want to manufacture the government needs to set up factories that strip cars down and melt their parts.

The government will buy the extra 4-6 million cars a year that car makers want to sell but consumers don't want to buy. They will then ship them directly to the new "auto wrecker" factories where workers will take the new cars apart and melt the parts down (otherwise those parts might find their way back to the automakers and put autoparts workers out of their jobs). So we preserve jobs in the auto sector and create new jobs in the auto wrecking sector.'

This reminds me an old joke. Somebody signed a guest book on a Soviet display during the auto show: 'You should show a horse instead...'