Ford CEO Mulally shares Toyota's vision
— -- In more than two years on the job, Mulally has tried to instill in Ford Toyota-like discipline and global product integration. He is intent on polishing into a jewel the Ford brand that had been allowed to become ho-hum. Like the Japanese company's famously long view, Mulally wants to look decades down the road, not months.
Make no mistake: Ford's emulation of the industry's halo company doesn't mean it's in the same league, yet. Not with the heavy debt load it still is trying to cut, a product portfolio in the U.S. still lacking in highly profitable small cars, and improved reliability still trying to erase missteps of past years in consumers' minds.
"Ford is being Ford. They aren't in as good of shape as you think," says Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics.
Ford has tried to float above that turmoil, even as March sales figures due out today are likely to show the industry's worst downturn in decades has yet to hit bottom.
Similarities between Ford, Toyota
The interest of Mulally, who used to drive one of Toyota's Lexus luxury cars before he joined Ford, in his Japanese competitor is more than a case of if-you-can't-beat-'em. The two companies have several things in common: Both still are heavily influenced by their founding families, the Fords and the Toyodas. Both innovated production methods that set standards for the industry. Both set new marks for the treatment of industrial workers.
Lately, they've added a few more common attributes to that list:
•Finances. For the moment, both are losing money, but surviving. Toyota has socked away a lot of savings. Ford lacks that kind of cushion, but Mulally swears it has enough cash to weather the recession without a dime of government loans.
