A Great Day in American Automotive History …

Sixty years ago Today the Ford Motor Company produced it’s 50 millionth automobile the Thunderbird, and fifty years ago today General Motors produced it’s 100 millionth automobile, the Tornado, putting the automobile revolution in full swing and launching the Automotive industry to its height (before their downfall began in the 1970s and 1980s with a series of engineering, manufacturing, and marketing mishaps and disasters, a downfall which continued in the 1990s where the recession resulted in weak auto sales and operating losses). Up until the 1980s, the US was the largest automobile producer in the world until Japan overtook it.

Producing a million units of anything in the 50’s was a feat, especially for something as large and complex as an automobile, and the fact that American companies could do it … and do it well … means that they used to have great supply chain management. Remember, even local and vertically integrated supply chains are still supply chains and this goes to show the value of near-, and home-, sourcing and (deep) control over key aspects of your supply chain.

Significant (non optimization backed) cost savings always comes at a price, and that price is usually an increase in risk. Be careful. Or your company could meet the same fate of the US automotive manufacturers, many of whom had to enter into bankruptcy and receive big bailouts from the government just to stay alive.