Ford Motor Co.
pquote background urlhttpwwwindustryweekcomsitefilesindustryweekcomfilesuploads201408openquoteiwpng norepeatimportant color 000000 fontstyle italic margin 10px padding 10px 1px 1px 50px fontsize 24px articleimage imagedescription p margin 0fontsize 16pxlineheight 19imagedescription background F8F8F8fontsize 11pxpadding 5px 5px 3pxcolor 000fontweight normalimportantpcaption paddingleft 20px paddingright 20px fontsize 12px lineheight 19 paddingbottom 2pxIn the past te

Giving the Little Guy a Leg Up at Ford

July 29, 2016
Ford's vice president of purchasing and supplier diversity talks about developing small businesses into high-level suppliers, and the mentors who helped him on his own professional journey.

Title: Vice President, Global Vehicle and Powertrain Purchasing & Supplier Diversity, Ford Motor Company

Previous Title: Director, purchasing, Ford Asia Pacific and Africa.

Birthplace:  Pontiac, Mich. “I was born to be in the auto industry. I’ve been a car guy all my life.”

Where he went to college: Alma College, a liberal arts school in Michigan.

College sports played: Football and track

Early mentor: GM vice president Roy Roberts, whose advice included: “Create strong relationships with people, because people doing business together have to trust each other.”

Where he got his real-world schooling:

1. GM, where he began his career as a cost estimator in the purchasing finance group.  “It was the early ‘90s when the industry was in turmoil, the supply base was struggling and there were a number of bankruptcies. So I was out at suppliers learning about processes, doing cost studies and cost estimates and trying to understand what problems were in the manufacturing process. It was fascinating.”

2. Toyota in Georgetown, Ky, where he was recruited away from GM. “They were just starting the business in the United States, so it was a company that was really teaching its employees. We could actually go to the line, see our parts being installed and talk to the suppliers that were there.”

3. United Technologies, where he worked his way up to director of purchasing and learned the business from the suppliers’ side.

Why purchasing’s cool:

“It’s one of those areas you can actually see, day to day, how you impact the business—making sure the parts are launched on time, with quality and in the most cost-effective way. And you never know what’s going to happen. When you come in you may have a schedule, but that schedule’s quickly altered because of a supply problem or some other issue that arises.”

What Ford was like when he got there in 1999:

“I was amazed at the intellectual capability. It seemed like everybody was smart. One of our problems, to be honest, was discipline. We were always thinking out of the box and were very good strategically but not very good on process discipline and uniformity. And having been an athlete, I was used to a more disciplined process in terms of thoughts and how you reacted.

“In the past ten years, with the One Ford Plan, we’ve become a much more disciplined company.”

Year Ford’s Supplier Diversity program launched: 1978, under the direction of Henry Ford II

Amount Ford has purchased from minority- and women-owed suppliers since then: $93 billion, with $8.4 billion of that in 2015.

Little-known nugget about the program:

Initially, it was mostly made up of assemblers that had a hard time making the leap to manufacturing parts. Ford then developed a Joint Technology Framework to give those small companies access to technology and intellectual property and partner them with Tier One suppliers. The Tier One suppliers act as mentors, teaching the smaller suppliers how they do business at a high level.

Diverse supplier success story:

Detroit Manufacturing Systems (DMS), an instrument panel manufacturer owned by self-made entrepreneur Andra Rush. Rush built her first startup, Rush Trucking, into Michigan's largest woman-owned business.

DMS, which initially partnered with Tier One Supplier Faurecia, now supplies Ford’s F150 and Mustang plants with instrument panels and employs 700 people in the city of Detroit.

Most challenging assignment:

Working in purchasing in Asia, particularly three years in Japan. “When I first got there, I couldn’t order a glass of water. It was the only country Ford operated in where English wasn’t the business language. I never was able to speak fluent Japanese. But because they knew I was taking lessons, they were more welcoming to me than others because I was making the effort to fit into their country.

“The Japanese people are very, very polite, but it’s also one of the most homogenous countries you’ll ever go to. I think being non-Japanese made [it harder], and being younger than everybody who worked for me. But it was a great personal and professional experience.”

About the Author

Laura Putre | Senior Editor, IndustryWeek

As senior editor, Laura Putre works with IndustryWeek's editorial contributors and reports on leadership and the automotive industry as they relate to manufacturing. She joined IndustryWeek in 2015 as a staff writer covering workforce issues. 

Prior to IndustryWeek, Laura reported on the healthcare industry and covered local news. She was the editor of the Chicago Journal and a staff writer for Cleveland Scene. Her national bylines include The Guardian, Slate, Pacific-Standard and The Root. 

Laura was a National Press Foundation fellow in 2022.

Got a story idea? Reach out to Laura at [email protected]

 

Sponsored Recommendations

Voice your opinion!

To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of IndustryWeek, create an account today!