Ford Australia To Cut 640 Jobs

[AU2PWR]

beginning of the End for Ford Australia ?

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by SR_AU

beginning of the End for Ford Australia ?

Not if they get an export market, which they are actively seeking with the option of LHD for the E8 Falcon and Territory. Its the only hope to secure a long term future.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Not if they get an export market, which they are actively seeking with the option of LHD for the E8 Falcon and Territory. Its the only hope to secure a long term future.

Exactly. Hurt for the next couple of years (hey they did it with the AU and ELII) and hopefully get back into running the plant at 80% and a lot of the operators, engineers, etc should get their jobs back.

[Iphido]

Not a bad time to move people out of a company. Low unemployment generally and a booming economy. Better to do this now than in a few years when things get tougher.

Each new generation of falcon brings new methods of construction, requiring less labour. So normally manufacturers should be shrinking workforces unless demands go through the roof.

With a few small LHD markets, falcon should be secure.

[4.9 EF Futura]

Originally Posted by MYV8

Not all that easy when the minimum wage, superannuation, workers comp, etc are SET at the levels they are.

.

Agreed.

Hopefully some of the members i regularly engage in discussion with may be able to identify the link between job losses (which many despise) and the need to improve productivity (which many despise).

This is exactly the outcome that a more flexible workplace could help us avoid. And no, im not talking about reducing wages - that's a band aid fix.

Now is the time to get a final answer from the people of this country - do you want to have your cake and eat it too?

[parawolf]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Not if they get an export market, which they are actively seeking with the option of LHD for the E8 Falcon and Territory. Its the only hope to secure a long term future.

But surely the vehicle would be built at Nanjing, China; with the vehicle design to be done in Australia (design factory, partially funded by the government remember).

But, once that is done, kiss goodbye the Falcon being built in Australia.

I'd expect that if Orion is going to be on the money it will be a LHD possible car, of which will be manufactured offshore, then give it a few years and you might be kissing goodbye to manufacturing in Australia apart from remanfactured models such as FPV.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by parawolf

But surely the vehicle would be built at Nanjing, China; with the vehicle design to be done in Australia (design factory, partially funded by the government remember).

But, once that is done, kiss goodbye the Falcon being built in Australia.

I'd expect that if Orion is going to be on the money it will be a LHD possible car, of which will be manufactured offshore, then give it a few years and you might be kissing goodbye to manufacturing in Australia apart from remanfactured models such as FPV.

It'll depend on how large the export market is. If it's 20/30,000 extra units than the cost to move the tooling, train the workers isn't worth the investment as the Broadmeadows plant can put out the units. Mind you if they need 100/200,000 more than no way would that money be spend building a second assembly plant in Oz.
But if FOA manufacturing is going down I guess it'll explain Prodrive getting into bed with Toyota.

[parawolf]

Originally Posted by vztrt

It'll depend on how large the export market is. If it's 20/30,000 extra units than the cost to move the tooling, train the workers isn't worth the investment as the Broadmeadows plant can put out the units. Mind you if they need 100/200,000 more than no way would that money be spend building a second assembly plant in Oz.

I guess partially true, but you wouldn't be going global with 20k or 30k more units.

Originally Posted by vztrt

But if FOA manufacturing is going down I guess it'll explain Prodrive getting into bed with Toyota.

Prodrive are just a consulting firm. They go where the money is coming from regardless of who owns them.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by parawolf

But surely the vehicle would be built at Nanjing, China; with the vehicle design to be done in Australia (design factory, partially funded by the government remember).

But, once that is done, kiss goodbye the Falcon being built in Australia.

I'd expect that if Orion is going to be on the money it will be a LHD possible car, of which will be manufactured offshore, then give it a few years and you might be kissing goodbye to manufacturing in Australia apart from remanfactured models such as FPV.

The total cost to set up a plant to build it would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe even into the billions considering the cost of some of the machinery. Some of the big presses are worth a few million by themselves. Not worth the total investment in that just to save a few dollars in labour. Ford wouldn't be investing 1.8 billion dollars in Australia if they had intentions to build them overseas in a few years time.

[Bud Bud]

Originally Posted by rodderz

Me too, it would be good if there were some sort of campaign started again to buy Australian like they did years ago, it's piece of mind for me to buy local stuff even if you pay a few more bucks for it. Unfortunately it's the way people work though to get the best deal on whatever they buy, and if the Chinese products come up in quality with not much price rise, the local scene will be pretty much screwed

Yeh but would it work? The majority of the buying public just don’t care. There used to be a factory in Hendon S.A. that made TV's (Phillips I think) but people just kept buying Japanese (China is the new Japan) until they had to close the factory down circa late 70's.

It doesn’t have to be the Chinese either, in the early 90's New Zealand’s Fisher Paykel aggressively launched a range of home appliances with some products barely meeting Australian design rules at the time. Everyone loved them. In 1994 Simpson in an effort to stave off growing competion, rationalised its fridge line operations and moved it out of Adelaide (where they had been making fridges there since Adam was a boy) to Orange NSW, and now they are closing the cook range plant in Adelaide altogether. How safe is the fridge line in Orange now???

Of coarse this not entirely Fisher Paykels fault but people still bought up these goods in preference to our Australian equivalent Products. How many here have a Fisher Paykel appliance at home? If these were Simpson or Kelvinator instead would that have made a difference over all???

We have had all these buy Australian campaigns before but we still keep finding ourselves in this mess. Why??? It seems that nobody (except Dick Smith) seems to really care.

[DanielXR8]

Originally Posted by vztrt

Actually they would be South African as the infrastructure is already there.



While the idea is good, Ford dont actually control the dealer network. They are there own organisation.

Ok I must confess I have never understood this distinction. If the dealers are not doing a good job and Ford apparently has no influence over them, then get a new organisation. It is patently ridiculous and ultimately self destructive to let the dealer network dictate terms to Ford.

[4.9 EF Futura]

Originally Posted by DanielXR8

Ok I must confess I have never understood this distinction. If the dealers are not doing a good job and Ford apparently has no influence over them, then get a new organisation. It is patently ridiculous and ultimately self destructive to let the dealer network dictate terms to Ford.

Yeah i would have expected some fairly stringent service level requirements.... but a lot of it subjective, difficult to measure...

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by 4.9 EF Futura

Yeah i would have expected some fairly stringent service level requirements.... but a lot of it subjective, difficult to measure...

I guess you would think competition from other dealers (for and non ford) would make them raise their standards.......

[Bill_R]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Not if they get an export market, which they are actively seeking with the option of LHD for the E8 Falcon and Territory. Its the only hope to secure a long term future.

start producing cars to run on up to 100% ethanol. Unfortunatley we need the govt to step in to get the industry going here. start with E10 at ever service station.
Brazil seems capable of doing it - no dependance on external fuel supplies. Holden exports to that market.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by Bill_R

start producing cars to run on up to 100% ethanol. Unfortunatley we need the govt to step in to get the industry going here. start with E10 at ever service station.
Brazil seems capable of doing it - no dependance on external fuel supplies. Holden exports to that market.

Brazil actually run their cars on E85 as they tried running on E100 but the industry almost went bust due to petrol being cheaper than ethanol. But you still make a valid point as it's can ease the petrol prices till a proper alternative comes along.