Essay Sample on Ford Motor: Committed to Team-Based Automotive Manufacturing

Introduction

Ford Motor is a United States' based company specialized in making automobiles. The organization has its headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. Henry Ford founded the firm, and it was established in 1903. The Ford company sells commercial vehicles and automobiles under the Ford brand (Patrina, 2014). The automotive company has joint -ventures in Taiwan, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Turkey. Ford company aims to introduce a team-based approach method for large-scale manufacturing of vehicles and the industrial workforce's extensive scale management. The organization's primary objective of proposing the team-based approach was to increased productivity at a minimized cost to meet customer's demands. Nonetheless, there are training issues that the Ford company would likely experience when introducing the team-based approach.

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Team-Based Approach Training Issues

As mentioned earlier, the team-based approach is essential to an organization such as Ford, aiming to increase productivity at a minimized cost to meet the client's demand. Nonetheless, there are training issues bound to arise in the implementation of a team-based approach, including:

Communication Breakdowns

Communication is a significant aspect of a team-based approach training. There is a need for practical communication skills such as speaking and listening to understand what is needed. Nonetheless, communication breakdown is typical in training and results typically inefficiency and a lack of trust between team members (Hubner & Baum, 2018). The reason is that it is easy for an individual to misinterpret a piece of group information, mostly if the training instructions are communicated electronically via e-mail, coworking application, or project management software.

Lack of Coordination

Team-based approaches have longer project timelines. A lot of organization's activities take much longer when a team is involved. The reason is that there is much more cooperation, coordination, feedback, work distribution, and overall organization needed when a project is done by a team rather than an individual. Therefore, such challenges can lead to tasks taking longer to complete, expensive, and consuming more of a firm's resources such as electricity, stationery, and paid work hours (Patrina, 2014). Additionally, decisions are difficult to reach in a group situation, leading to slow progress towards objectives. Whereas evaluating challenges from all angles and observing the pros and cons of every potential solution enhances productivity at a minimized cost, many discussions can lead to inaction.

Overreliance on Meetings Leads to Slackness

It is challenging for an organization to implement a team-based approach without conducting regular meetings. Frequent meetings are needed for a team to understand their purpose and objectives and how they can join efforts to achieve them. Consequently, team-based approach training is only viable if a group can communicate effectively, and thus meetings form a substantial part of most grouped projects. However, it is easier for discussions to lead to more tangents and questions than actions and answers due to the communal nature observed in meetings (Parappilly et al., 2019). When such issues arise, there is a need for additional sessions to be scheduled that can further convolute the training at hand and slow forward the progress.

How Ford Company Can Address These Training Issues

The Ford Company can address the training issues experienced in its team-based approach by incorporating human development (HRD) practices. Below are some of the methods that can be utilized to manage the training issues as benchmarked in General Motor Company.

Team-Building Activities

As earlier mentioned, communication breakdowns are typical in a team-based discussion. The communication challenges are mainly caused whenever team members do not have the bond needed to work. In such a scenario, team-building activities such as mountain climbing, group juggle, and blind retriever formulate the bond required to use as a group. It is easy to reach a common objective when team members respect and appreciate other members' opinions in a group. In that perspective, team building activities will help address communication breakdown and disorientation in a team (Hubner & Baum, 2018).

Additionally, team-building activities help solve the issue of a disorientated team. As earlier mentioned, team members start respecting and appreciating their colleagues when they know them personally. In that perspective, team-building activities are an integral element to help Ford Company propose team-based approaches effectively to fulfill its ambition to increase productivity at a minimized cost.

Partitioned Training Programs

It is much easier for a trainer to manage a group of ten people or less when compared to a group of 100 individuals. In a smaller group, employees can ask questions on areas that they feel need to be addressed. Consequently, training programs with a few team members help a trainer understand each team member's strengths and weaknesses and thus understand areas that they need to improve (Parappilly et al., 2019). The reason is that a training and development program brings all team members to an increased level so that they are in a position to have similar knowledge and skills. Additionally, training-based approaches help minimize the overreliance of meetings that may coerce group members to reduce the intensity and motivation needed to work.

Conclusion

Ford Company aims to enhance productivity while at the same time minimizing cost. The organization has settled on a team-based approach as one of the strategies to attain such objectives. Nonetheless, there are training issues that are bound to arise, such as lack of cooperation, coordination, and communication challenges customarily observed in a team. However, team building activities and training programs improve the bond between team members and enhance their work skills to achieve the organization's goals and objectives. The reason is that in team-building activities, employees are in a position to respect and appreciate their colleague, which make it easy to understand their personalities and values while working with them.

Consequently, training programs enable team members to voice out their opinions or ask questions on areas that they feel they need to be addressed. Such strategies are essential to an organization such as Ford that aims to increase private and commercial vehicles' production at a minimized cost to meet clients' demands. A team-based approach will help the organization reduces the number of resources needed to train and develop the employees individually into different positions in the organization.

References

Hubner, S., & Baum, M. (2018). Entrepreneurs' human resources development. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 29(4), 357-381.
https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21328

Parappilly, M., Woodman, R., & Randhawa, S. (2019). Feasibility and Effectiveness of Different Models of Team-Based Learning Approaches in STEMM-Based Disciplines. Research In Science Education, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-019-09888-8

Patrina, E. (2014). Managing the organizational development through global expansion: a case study of Ford Motor Company. NEW UNIVERSITY: ECONOMICS & LAW, (5-6), 52-56.
https://doi.org/10.15350/2221-7347.2014.5-6.00056.