Analysis of the experience and stability project at Ford Motor Company : what does it take to change a culture and rebuild a technical organization?

As Ford Motor Company celebrates its 100th anniversary; it finds itself in a crisis due to its lack of technical proficiency. The lack of technical depth within the workforce is the result of a deeply ingrained culture that encourages employees to change positions every 18-24 months to vastly diverse parts of the company. The problem is exacerbated by years of early retirements, company sell-offs and outsourcing of technical design work to full service suppliers. In reaction to the lack of technical competency, Ford has undergone one of the largest reorganizations in their history. The new organization is now centered on function with loose ties back to the many vehicle programs. In order to encourage a new corporate culture that values technical depth over being a generalist, Ford has also developed additional projects within the organization. One of the most prominent is the Employee Stability Project (ESP) and Technical Maturity Model (TMM) that focus in on developing a technical development plan for each individual engineer. This research analyzes the rollout of the ESP/TMM project within the Body Engineering function (with some comparisons to the Chassis Organization). Data was collected through two surveys conducted nine months apart and focus group sessions. The surveys encompassed the entire Body Engineering organization. In addition, the culture at Ford was compared with the culture developed at one of its main rivals, Toyota. The data for Toyota was collected through one-on-one interviews. The result of the data collected show that entire workforce recognizes that the lack of technical depth within the company is an issue.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Authors dc:creator

• Chatawanich, Candy Suda, 1972-
• Rush, Timothy Arthur

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Paul Carlile.

• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/30055

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/30055