Conference Session

Leadership and Administration in ET

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michael Whitt, Purdue University; Rodney Handy, Purdue University; Margaret Ratcliff, Purdue University-Columbus/SE Indiana

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Technology

General Motor’s(GM’s) planned workforce reduction of 30,000 workers by 2008.2 However, Ford ismaking strides to increase innovation by soliciting ideas from within.3GM has recently set a financial goal of annual cost reductions of $14 billion using their2005 revenues as the basis for this calculation. As a result their structural costs will bereduced from its current value of 34 percent to 25 percent of company revenues by 2010.Currently, their cost-to-revenue ratio in North America is higher than the 34 percentaverage.4 Page 11.579.2US companies have found that it is more cost effective to outsource than to own all stagesof the production process. As