Ford Commercial Vehicles Discussion Responses
Part 1a. Please use 200-400 words. Use 2 different references that are websites and are based in the United States. Please use in text citations. Please when responding make sure to add to what was said please don’t elaborate on what was wrote.
Ford has long been known for having one of the longest standing pickup trucks on the road today. Ford became the primary producer of trucks in the early 1900’s (Timeline). Since then, there have been many changes to the production process, but the are a few things that have remained constant. Direct materials used are still plastic for the fender/bumper areas, sheet metal along with fiberglass, glass, and internal materials for the upholstery. Typically the upholstery comes in a combination of fabric and leather.
According to the Department of Labor and Statistics, there are over 933,000 employees in the automobile production industry (Labor of Statistics). It is not clear if this is direct labor employees that work within the factories to produce these products, or if this includes indirect labor. Indirect labor employees in the automobile industry could be an employee that does not have a first hand touch not he production process such as an accountant, HR personnel, janitor, etc.
Overhead costs associated with most companies consist of payroll, rent, and utilities. These expenses are essentially costs that are not directly associated to the product that is produced, but is necessary to operate as a business. Unlike most companies, after the pandemic of COVID-19, they decided to keep their employees working remotely to lower their overhead costs. While payroll is one overhead cost that can not easily be lowered, the focus shifts to other areas. There is a fine line between being adequately staffed, and over staffed, however. A company can eliminate too many employees from working overtime, thus costing the company overtime wage expense.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (n.d.). National Employment. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved June 9, 2022, from https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iagauto.htm
Timeline – history, Chronology – Ford Rouge Factory Tour. The Henry Ford. (n.d.). Retrieved June 9, 2022, from https://www.thehenryford.org/visit/ford-rouge-factory-tour/history-and-timeline/timeline/
Part 1b. Please use 200-400 words. Use 2 different references that are websites and are based in the United States. Please use in text citations. Please when responding make sure to add to what was said please don’t elaborate on what was wrote.
Baseball is “America’s pastime” and at the center of the sport is the ball itself. So, the product I would like to discuss is the baseball. Aside from my golden retriever and the kids from The Sandlot when they “busted the guts out of a ball”, most of us could only guess what one looks like on the inside. In the multi-million dollar big leagues, the science around how spin rate, exit velocity and ball flight data affect pitching and hitting creates a necessity for a near-perfect manufacturing process (Janes, 2022). Thus there is a very intricate manufacturing process that combines a few materials and several procedures, both computerized and manual, to produce a baseball. There are millions of baseballs produced every year, with approximately 600,000 alone used in Major League Baseball games each season – that’s around 100 each game (Madehow, 2022). MLB and a private equity firm partnered to purchase Rawlings, the league’s baseball manufacturer, in 2018 for $395 million (Calcaterra, 2018).
There are several direct materials used to produce baseballs. Five of those are the cork pill in the center, the wool layer of windings covering the cork, the poly/cotton layer of windings covering the wool, the cowhide used for the two outside covers and the waxed red thread used to sew the covers together (Madehow, 2022). In order to lower these costs, Rawlings could obtain multiple quotes for each different material and choose the best value, or, in the case of the wool material, they could buy directly from the producer if they are currently purchasing from a third party supplier.
Direct labor includes employees who work directly on the balls being manufactured (Williams et al., 2021, pg. 740). The winding process is computerized, so one type of direct labor associated with this part of the process would be the computer operators. The ball covers are carefully stitched together by hand in Costa Rica, so another classification of direct labor would be the sewers/stitchers (Adler et al., 2018). While it seems these costs have already been lowered, with the winding portion computerized and the sewing portion moved to a low-cost location, another cost savings may be found in an audit of consumable resources to see if there is excess or waste in any area.
Three types of overhead costs involved with producing baseballs would be indirect labor costs, plant occupancy costs and machinery and equipment costs (Williams et al., 2021, pg. 741). Indirect labor costs could include supervisor, maintenance worker, or security personnel salaries at the stitching facility in Costa Rica. Plant occupancy costs could include insurance and property tax on the same facility. Finally, machinery and equipment costs would include the depreciation of the computerized wool-winding machines and the associated maintenance. Lowering overhead costs for salaries is sometimes met by hiring lower-skilled or less-experienced workers or managers. Energy-efficiency measures such as reducing electricity at the plant could be one way to lower occupancy costs. Ways to avoid early, more costly depreciation of computerized machines is to make sure they are well-maintained on a consistent schedule and ensuring replacement parts are kept in multiples in case any of the suppliers happen to go out of business.
References:
Adler, L., Ghiroli, B., & Sarris, E. (2021, July 8). ‘Find a better ball’: MLB needs to improve the
baseball, but it’s more complicated than it might seem. The Athletic.
https://theathletic.com/2694659/2021/07/08/find-a-better-ball-mlb-needs-to-improve-the-
baseball-but-its-more-complicated-than-it-might-seem/.
Calcaterra, C. (2018, June 6). Major League Baseball buys Rawlings. NBC Sports.
https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2018/06/06/major-league-baseball-buys-rawlings/.
Janes, C. (2022, May 14). This MLB season, the ball is making everyone batty. The Washington
Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/05/14/mlb-dead-baseball-grip/.
Madehow. (2022). Baseball. How Products Are Made. http://www.madehow.com/Volume-
1/Baseball.html.
Williams, J., Haka, S., Bettner, M., & Carcello, J. (2021). Financial & Managerial Accounting.
McGraw-Hill Education.
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