Joey7F
Ford had a major credibility gap after the reported problem with the notorious Pinto.Ford has a history of innovations that are damaged by large scale problem within a product line. In order to restore consumer goodwill they would have a radical culture shift where social responsibility became a core value rather than an issue that was addressed lightly. This paper will address what has gone wrong, why, and most importantly, how they have changed operationally.
The infamous Edsel started a line of failures that would damage the Ford brand. Named after Ford’s son was billed as a ground breaking design. Without dedicated facilities the quality control suffered. The car had a list of problems. There were cases where cars that weren’t exactly complete showed up at dealerships. As hard to believe, there were instances of dealer's receiving a list on the steering wheel saying which parts were missing and what part of the brakes wouldn’t be working. [INSERT BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE HERE]
Another car that had problems was the Ford Pinto, even though the car was said to be good for the economy. It was cheap, it weight two-thousand cost and two-thousand. It was also fuel efficient which was especially important in the days of gas lines, rationing and OPEC instability. However, all of those problem pale in comparison to the issues related to the gas tank. It was situated between the bumper and the rear axel. In the crash tests eight out of 11 cars suffered potentially catastrophic gas tank ruptures. The other three cars that survived had been modified in some way to protect the tank. This information was not given out until after the cars were out on market and after the first time they looked in to a recall. When it did appear on their radar later, they decided on a course of inaction that later was perceived as ambivalence to the safety of the consumer. Obviously in retrospect, this was not a good moral decision. Just because a car is cheap doesn’t mean it also can’t be well-built. One of the problems they face was that in order to be profitable and they failed to consider well being of their fellow man.
In order to contend with the Japanese and European car market Ford had to come up with a car quickly, which they showed by manufacturing the Pinto in 25 months. It usually took for a normal car about 43 months to manufacture a car.
Dennis Gioia was a guy that wanted to make a change in the world. He graduated with a BS in Engineering Science and an MBA. He was a stereotypical “Child of the ‘60’s.” Since he held his principles high and wanted to make a difference his friends were amazed when he accepted the job at Ford. When he took the job he wanted the chance to influence social change in business. He obviously had a strong set of convictions to trend against what many of his mindset viewed as a force working against their values. When Dennis started working for Ford he as really into his job. He would go and look at the files. And even when he went home he was so consumed by them that at night he would wake up and worry. The passion that he had for his job and his people was exemplorary. Even though people in the outside don’t know what goes on, they get front row tickets to see the effects of their own work. That kind of zeal it will help not only the people that they are producing the product for but also it will make the company environment better. Some companies have even integrated a reputation of responsibility into their marketing with the hope that when presented with these admirable actions they will buy that product. It would have been worth the cost in time, money and human lives for them to have done the extra work to fix it.
Later on in Dennis Gioia’s career his moral compass and been altered by the company pressures. The passion that he once had was not there. He would get cases and they wouldn’t affect him. People that he worked for influenced him to even think the same way that they did where he became numb to the litany of potential hazards and effected a cold triage evaluation process. The first time they had talked about recalling the car Gioia was swayed by his peers. Later he admitted that the reason that he voted against the recall was because it didn’t fit the standers of what a car needs to be recalled. As Gioia said,” they [the Pinto cases] did not fit an existing script… the schemas driving my perceptions and actions precluded consideration of the issues in ethical terms because the script did not include ethical dimensions.”
A lot has changed in the past 25 years. Ford has continued to have a few problems mainly with their Sports Utility Vehicles but nothing compared to the past failures. In fact, Ford began renovating their Rouge plant in Deerborn into a ultramodern and environmentally friendly facility. The plant is such a marvel of engineering they they hold tours available to the public. Pictures on the web make it look more like an exhibit at Disney World than a world class manufacturing facility. All of this is a testament to how much for cares for the local environment and how seriously they take their social responsibility. With so much at stake it is a refreshing to see a company address the faults of their past and take corrective action for their own and our future.
Controls Lab
Labview Cluster - Frequently a cluster is compared to structures in C. It will hold different data types.It is convenient to link two related objects together. For example, you can "use" the controls in a cluster to relate to an indicator in another cluster. This is handy for a number of reasons not the least of which is the ability to keep the block diagram clean.
Matlab Cluster - Either this does not exist in the labview context or it is infinitely more common to run Matlab on a cluster (eg Beowulf Cluster)
Labview Array - Arrays are similar to clusters in that they hold lots of data, but unlike in a cluster, the data has to be of the same type. This is a convenient way of storing plot points, where the index value can represent time and its value. One handy feature of Labview is an "Empty Array" command already built in.
Matlab Array - Some could argue that Matlab exclusively uses Arrays because they exclusively use matrices. Matlab like Labview, contains support for multidimensional arrays.One crucial difference between Matlab and Labview (and every other programming language that I have been exposed to) is that arrays are not zero based indexed. That is to say that a = [ 9 18 27 36 ] a(2) = 18, not 27.
Labview Formula Node - A formula node greatly assists in implementing long formulas quickly when the graphical approach would be too time consuming. One could compare this to a subroutine in a more traditional programming language. Before you can use the formula node you must identify the inputs and outputs.
Matlab Formula Node - In Matlab formulas can be typed in but you must define variables first.
Labview For/Next Loop - In the form of a case window you can set the limits. It is not clear how you can increment in values other than 1 without doing a lot of mathematical trickery.
Matlab For Loop - The For/While Loop behaves as in Labview. It is in the form for i=start:increment (defaults to 1):end
Labview Graphs - There are three main types of graphs (all are indicators) in labview XY graph, XY Chart and XY Waveform. One nice feature is the ability to pass multiple arguments to the graph via a bundle such as a start value and resolution value.
Matlab Graphs - In Matlab you graph by using PLOT (in the form of (x, y) or FPLOT.
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