General Introduction

The company was founded by Sir Henry Ford in Michigan in the year 1903. The company now encompasses many car brands like Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover and Volvo. The company commands one third interest in Mazda Motors. The company also purchased Rover recently. The company is one of the largest revenue earning companies in the world today. However the company has not done well in the past few years and since the year 1995 it has lost a lot of revenue. The slump is still going on. Toyota was soon expected to overtake the company in the year 1996 as the second largest automaker in the world.

In fact, research suggests that in the year 2007, Ford will also be overtaken by DaimlerChrysler. Ford has contributed very positively to using large scale manufacturing methods and techniques and also was a pioneer in engineered manufacturing sequences that were introduced in the assembly line. The factories were very efficient and all its workers were very highly paid.

History

As mentioned before, the factory came up in the year 1903 with the total investment touching $28,000 at that time. The money was invested by twelve investors. During the first few years only a few cars were manufactured everyday as demand for them was less. There were small groups of two or three people working on each car. Henry Ford, who was 40 then did not even have an idea that his company would become one of the largest and the most profitable companies in the world. The company has also to its credit the distinction of being the largest family controlled company in the world. The company has been under continuous family control for over 100 years now.

New Goals

In the year 2000, the company was under the leadership of its chairman, William Clay. The company made an announcement that it would be able to manufacture trucks which would lessen 25 per cent consumption of petrol. However in the year 2003, the company gauged that tough competitive conditions as well as the technological and cost challenges would make the proposal difficult to achieve. The company did achieve some significant progress in this direction in the year 2005 when it introduced the Hybrid Electric Escape.

Many models like the Mercury Mariner will be available with the hybrid-electric system. Many other models will also be fitted with the system so as to reduce running costs. In the year 2005, the company made an announcement of manufacturing 2,50,000 hybrid vehicles by the year 2010. But by mid 2006, the company gauged that it would not be able to achieve the goal.

Models

The models that will be fitted with the hybrid system in the near future are Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan. These will be introduced in the year 2008. The crossover SUVs to be introduced by the company in the year 2007 are the Edge and the MMX. The company is also spending a lot of time in research of fuel powered electric trains and also demonstrating hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine technologies. The company has been successful in manufacturing an increasing number of hybrid as well as fuel cell vehicles. This will result in lesser consumption of fuel as well as decrease in the pollution levels in the environment. There will also be less sound pollution in the environment.

Economic Issues

In the late 1990s, the company was very successful in selling SUVs and trucks. The economy was booming and the stock market was on an all time high. The prices of gasoline were also low. However during the coming decade, the company was in a crisis due to factors such as high gasoline prices, legacy healthcare costs, falling market share and declining sales. The company was making a major part of its profit from car loans and consumer financing. The profit margin on the large scale vehicles was also on the decline. Ford has still moved ahead in introducing newer models to increase the sales and capture the market again.