The boldfaced text above is key. Am I the only one who keyed on this?

“in ADDITION to cost”, as in “ADDITIONAL cost.” It sure sounds to me as if they are seeking additional cost.

And yes, who would want to pursue government contracts? I worked for an aerospace defense contractor years ago, long before Sarbanes-Oxley and ISO 9000.

We made water hoses for cars, trucks, tanks, and helicopters. The hoses were typically transported by truck or train on giant reels. But any hoses destined for a government customer were not allowed to be wound onto reels. There was no valid technical reason for this. It did not result in a shorter life expectancy for our products, yet we had no choice; this was written into all of our government contracts.

So we had to employ longer trucks or rail cars for these products. It raised our cost, which of course, we always passed on to the customer. That’s you, you, and you, taxpayers! Today, companies have hundreds of similar useless regulations that they have to follow. If I ran a company, I would probably seek to AVOID interaction with government customers. A lot of companies feel the same way. Too much regulation, too much effort must be spent in “contract breach avoidance” efforts.

I recently got to ask someone in Warren, Michigan about this. He/She said that zero of the Big 3 or their suppliers compete for government contracts. Why, you ask? Too little profit. Generally, government contracting allows for 10 -15% above cost profits as the USG is trying to support domestic companies. When was the last time the Big Three earned 10 to 15% profit?

Now I know why companies like BAE and Osh Kosh are making our militaries trucks and not the Big Three.

Further proof the only Americans currently at war is the military.

That, and it needs lots of cup holders.

IMO, the real reason Ford is doing this is to suck up to the government to get that money they don’t need.

How about concentrating on giving *everyone* jobs instead of “investment opportunities?”

If there are going to be preferences, they should be by socio-economic status, not by skin color or plumbing.

On the common parts thing, I’m an engineer and Ford’s track record there doesn’t make any sense to me. In my work we always looked to reuse existing stuff if possible. Good engineers are just a touch lazy and don’t like doing unnecessary work :). Maybe the decision to make everything custom and unique was made by the boss of the fiefdom who wanted above all else to maximize the size of his or her mini-empire.

Which shows how horribly mismanaged Ford was when it tolerated having some three dozen kinds of seat tracks. We know what the engineers were doing–designing unique seat tracks for each model–but what the hell did the MBA’s do?

What does minority- and women-owned suppliers have to do with a business model that competes on technology, in addition to cost? When a company is flirting with disaster the last thing they need is this crap.

Disappointed in Ford, thought they were getting it together.

That’s what I like to hear. Unlike GM, which seems to need the bailout just to keep the lights on a few months longer.