Ford has made faster progress than expected in cutting costs as part of an extensive revamping, president and chief operating officer Nick Scheele said yesterday, according to Associated Press (AP).
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While visiting the Louisville assembly plant to drive the five millionth Explorer off the line, Scheele told AP that Ford is about 20% ahead of its target to reduce costs by an average of $US200 a vehicle this year.
AP said that Ford, which reported losses of $5.45 billion last year, has set a goal of cutting costs by an average $700 a vehicle by 2005. In January, the company announced a restructuring plan that called for the elimination of 35,000 jobs and five plants.
Scheele told AP that the better-than-expected savings did not mean the ultimate goal would be met sooner.
“It means we have a long way to go, a very long way to go, and we will keep plugging away,” he told AP. “I wouldn’t characterise it as, `Eureka,’ or, `We’ve got it licked,’ but we are better off than we could have been.”
Scheele told AP that only a couple of months ago, the company was not optimistic about meeting its savings goal. He credited engineering and redesign changes for the savings, not any elimination of features, AP added.
