(autoinsidernews) - Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally said Friday he plans to merge the automaker's regional divisions and brands into a single global operation modeled after Toyota. Toyota is probably the company that Mulally admires most in the world, calling Toyota's production system, the machine that changed the world.
We've got to go from where we are to leverage our global assets to compete as one company going forward, Mulally said. There's not one Ford. There's Ford of North America, there's Ford of South America, there's probably three Fords that make up Ford of Europe. There's Australia. There's China, India there's a lot of Fords, and they're operated very separately as business units. We've got to go from where we are to leverage our global assets to compete as one company going forward.
All of this means Ford must better integrate its global operations and take a long, hard look at its brand portfolio. Mulally has hinted that Ford will eventually appoint global product development and manufacturing czars. Mulally also wants to find ways to share more cars globally instead of having multiple vehicles doing virtually the same thing, only in different markets, reports Trend.
While he is thinking about Ford on global scale, Mulally made it clear that fixing Ford's North American automotive operations will come first.