Ford - An Overview by Mark Rearick

 

GUEST SPEAKER
The club was privileged to have Mark Rearick, husband of Christina, as its guest speaker.
Mark as the CFO of Ford Australia, has great knowledge of the car industry and has been present in Australia when THE most major decision by Ford to cease manufacturing was made public.
 

 

 

A number of significant points arising from Mark’s eloquent and informative presentation were –
• Ford is known as a family company
• Mark is a second generation Ford employee as his father was also employed by Ford
• Mark started as a 19 year old engineering student but switched his career path into finance 15 years ago
• Ford is a huge part of the Michigan community
• Australia is Mark’s first overseas posting
• Ford has been manufacturing at Geelong for 90 years
• The labour manufacturing cost proportionately between Australia, Asia and Europe are, respectively, 100%, 28% and 50%
• Whilst Ford will cease manufacturing in 2016, it will continue to undertake research and development employing 1100 engineers
• Ford has four product design locations around the world, one of which is Australia, and Australia is very competitive in the provision of product design
• R&D budget for 2012 was $200M
• R&D budget for next six years worldwide is $1.9B
• Ford works very closely with Microsoft to develop the integration of phone systems into vehicles
• Ford is working closely with the State Government to maximise the benefits for the State and Ford
• Mark showed us a vehicle that can parallel park itself – very handy for some who are not good at parking
• In summary, whilst manufacturing will cease, Australia will continue to provide R&D and product design into the foreseeable future for Ford.
We are indeed fortunate that Christina chose to join our club, as that gave us the opportunity to hear a presentation from a very senior executive, in a truly global corporation, who is at the cutting edge of business in a highly competitive global industry.
 
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