Kickstart: A new focus on costs, suppliers at Ford

There's a new buyer in town at Ford Motor Co.

The Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker has seen its costs rise and its reputation among suppliers fall and on June 6 announced it is bringing in the former global sourcing executive for Whirlpool Corp. to serve as its new supply chain officer, our sister paper Automotive News writes.

Liz Door began her career at Prince Corp., a Holland, Mich.-based injection molding auto supplier that was purchased by Johnson Controls Inc. in 1996. She went on to work in supply chain roles at General Motors before joining Whirlpool.

Ford had warned investors in 2022 that its costs were rising. In May, the 2023 North American Automotive OEM-Supplier Working Relations Index Study from Plante Moran showed that Ford fell 23 points in terms of its working relationship with parts makers.

"Ford and our suppliers will win together by delivering fresh, high-quality products for our customers," Door said in a statement from Ford. "We're going to expand the use of advanced quality planning throughout the supply portfolio."

PolyFlex Products Inc. opened in 2003 with six employees in a 17,000-square-foot facility. It generated less than $1 million in sales that first year.

Twenty years later, it is marking its anniversary as a company with $52 million in revenue, three plants in Michigan, one in Tennessee and one in Mexico employing 187 people.

The Farmington Hills, Mich.-based company has injection molding, cast and foam polyurethane manufacturing, reaction injection molding, thermoforming and rapid prototyping. It specializes in custom packaging for material handling and automated manufacturing process applications.

It makes big containers for complex automotive engines as well as trays for smaller items.

At a special celebration to mark the anniversary, executives stressed that the company has a strategic plan for growth and for continued investments to help its customers keep up with the "rapidly changing landscape of manufacturing."

"Change is one of our seven values, and we are always conscious that we must change in order to meet the needs of the customer and the market," CEO Mark Kirchmer told PN Editor Don Loepp when he visited the company in early 2020.

The New York Times had a doozy of a correction posted on June 6.

"An earlier version of this obituary referred incorrectly to PVC, or polyvinyl chloride. Though its primary component, vinyl chloride, is a known carcinogen, PVC itself is not classified as one."

The obituary in question was for Robin Guenther, an architect celebrated for her "healthy buildings" approach that emphasized natural light, access to nature and sustainable building products where possible. She often worked in designing health care facilities, including the Center for Discovery in New York.

What she didn't like, as you can guess from the specific mention of PVC, was vinyl products in construction.

I'm not about to start arguing about sustainable building practices here, but I am wondering … who contacted the Times to prompt the correction?