ilPistone.com

Da tifoso dell'economia italiana l'accordo FIAT CHRYSLER mi fa molto piacere, molto piu' di una vittoria della nazionale ai mondiali.

Quanti si ricordano che prima della FIAT c'era la Mercedes?
E quanti hanno dimenticato che chi ha ridotto la Chrysler in questo stato è stata sempre la Mercedes?
Per i non ricordanti c'è un bell'articolo su Autonews su come si è sviluppato il matrimonio DAIMLERCHYRSLER:

Chrysler shriveled under Schrempp

Jesse Snyder
and Bradford Wernle
Automotive News
April 30, 2009 - 12:01 am ET

From the first day the automakers operated together -- a champagne-soaked, two-continent extravaganza -- the pretense of DaimlerChrysler as a merger of equals began slipping away.




In a dark-paneled boardroom at the New York Stock Exchange, DaimlerChrysler Co-Chairman Juergen Schrempp -- an intense, chain-smoking German -- and his shorter, quieter American counterpart, Bob Eaton, met with a pair of reporters.

After ceremonies observing DaimlerChrysler's stock listing in Frankfurt on Nov. 16, 1998, and in New York the next morning, Schrempp and Eaton were jubilant but winding down. Sitting at the head of the table, Schrempp handled most questions. Beside him, a more subdued Eaton puffed on a huge cigar and occasionally added a remark.

But when Eaton, who already had announced that he would retire before Schrempp, was asked whether he would leave early, Schrempp intercepted the question. He leaned forward and slammed both fists on the tabletop. He growled: "I need him!"

Eaton remained silent.


Casualties
Key executive departures from DaimlerChrysler
  Title Date Reason
Bob Lutz Vice chairman 1998 Retired
Dennis Pawley Exec. VP of manufacturing 1998 Resigned
Chris Theodore VP of engineering 1999 Resigned
Shamel Rushwin VP of manufacturing 1999 Resigned
Tom Stallkamp President 1999 Ousted
Bob Eaton co-Chairman 1999 Retired
Jim Holden President 2000 Ousted
Ted Cunningham VP of sales 2000 Ousted
Kathleen Oswald Chief admin. Officer 2000 Ousted
Tony Cervone Communications chief 2000 Ousted
Tom Gale Exec. VP of design 2000 Retired
Francois Castaing Adviser to the chairman 2000 Retired





'Cash machine'

As soon as the May 7, 1998, announcement that Germany's Daimler-Benz AG and Chrysler Corp. would combine, many financial analysts speculated that the deal was more Daimler takeover than merger. Those in the top ranks of Chrysler had no doubt.

"Daimler was interested because we were a cash machine," Francois Castaing, a former head of Chrysler engineering, told Automotive News.

In 1998 and 1999, Chrysler churned out annual profits of about $5 billion. Castaing had a lot to do with that.

The French-born engineer became head of product engineering after Chrysler acquired American Motors from Renault in 1987. Under then-President Bob Lutz, Castaing and others adapted AMC's innovative product development approach to create a "platform team" process at Chrysler.

The system forged a collegial attitude among the senior managers who reported to Lutz. But as Daimler came to dominate the supposed merger of equals and Eaton failed to defend American viewpoints, some veteran Chrysler managers despaired.

"When you have a real merger of equals, the co-chairmen work side by side in the same office," said Castaing, who left his job as an executive vice president in early 1998 but stayed on as an adviser to Eaton until 2000.

Castaing was dismayed to learn that Schrempp would be based in Stuttgart and Eaton in suburban Detroit. "I didn't want anything to do with something like that," Castaing said. Inner circle dissolves

Chrysler's inner circle was dissolving. Lutz, then 67, retired in June 1998 while the new company was taking shape.

Schrempp watched the senior Chrysler managers whom he admired slip away. When Executive Vice President Dennis Pawley signaled he would leave before the merger went into effect, Schrempp turned on his considerable charm.

Pawley, a one-time General Motors plant foreman, had established a Japanese-style lean manufacturing system at Chrysler. One autumn evening, over fried fish and beer at a table with other senior executives at a fishing lodge near Stuttgart, Schrempp asked him why he wanted to leave.

"I want to fish," Pawley replied, in a conversation reported by Bill Vlasic and Bradley Stertz in their book, Taken for a Ride.

Schrempp insisted: "Nah, nah, you are important. We're going to have all kinds of fun running this company, and you're not going anywhere."

But Pawley did. At 57, he had had enough of factories and frequent air travel. He wanted to spend more time with his wife. He quit Chrysler to set up a manufacturing consulting business.

The attrition at Chrysler headquarters continued. In the first quarter of 1999, engineering Vice President Chris Theodore and manufacturing Vice President Shamel Rushwin left to join Ford.

Wild party

As Chrysler's management team unraveled, Schrempp tried to rebuild German-American camaraderie at a management retreat in Seville, Spain, in February 1999. On the opening evening, amid the hotel's Old World grandeur, dozens of executives ate, drank and smoked fine cigars.

But for two Chrysler executives, the indelible memory emerged as the evening wound down. Eaton had been quiet and subdued all evening while an animated Schrempp regaled the group.

As usual, Schrempp's wife was not there. But his longtime secretary, Lydia Deininger, was beside him. Abruptly, Schrempp picked up the petite Deininger, slung her over his shoulder, said farewell to a startled cluster of executives and carried his secretary up the stairs.

"Eaton was out of it," said one executive who had refused a job offer from another automaker. "At that moment, I decided to leave. I came home and made the call."

Eaton had picked Tom Stallkamp to replace Lutz as Chrysler president in late 1997. But weeks before Eaton retired in late 1999, he fired Stallkamp, replacing him with Chrysler sales boss Jim Holden.

Less than a year later, as Chrysler sales continued to fall, Schrempp abruptly sacked Holden. Days after he was fired, Holden told Peter Brown, then the editor and now the editorial director of Automotive News, that Schrempp blamed him for lower sales.

Holden followed Lutz, Pawley, Theodore, Rushwin, Stallkamp and Eaton out the door. In May 2000, Executive Vice President Tom Gale, Chrysler's highly regarded design chief, announced he would retire by year end and open a design consulting firm.

Two years after Daimler's takeover, the group that had created Chrysler's platform teams and six years of prosperity had quit, retired or been canned.

Slashing costs

But the bloodletting wasn't over at Chrysler. In November 2000, Schrempp named Dieter Zetsche, an engineer who was running Mercedes' commercial-vehicle division, to replace Holden.

By then, the U.S. operation no longer was a cash cow. Chrysler had failed to cut production to match falling sales. Finally, the company closed most of its plants and boosted incentives on unsold vehicles. By the fourth quarter of 2000, the heady profits of 1998 and 1999 had evaporated into a $1.2 billion loss.

Zetsche cleaned house. Sales chief Ted Cunningham, chief administrative officer Kathleen Oswald and communications head Tony Cervone all departed. Zetsche ordered his COO, Wolfgang Bernhard, to slash costs further.

"Daimler did rip out a lot of cost" after Zetsche took over Chrysler, a former senior engineer said. Before Zetsche, platform managers had allowed model-by-model variations to proliferate. Costs rose as Chrysler's lineup of cars and trucks shared fewer parts, the engineer said.

"Chrysler's platform teams realized they had gone too far on individualizing products and were scaling back," he said. "But under Dieter, we repeated history. We ripped out stuff that people noticed and went back to making cheap interiors and noisy cars."

Colleagues remember a Jeep platform team manager's embarrassment after he was ordered to cut manufacturing costs on an existing model. He removed a low-washer-fluid warning light.

His daughter bought one of the Jeeps without the warning light. One wet but sunny winter morning, she called from her car: "Dad, I'm out of washer fluid and I can't see. What happened to the warning light?"

'Hollowed out'

Chrysler's losses damaged Schrempp's status with his board and emboldened skeptical shareholders who had opposed the Chrysler deal. German financial circles dismissed Chrysler as a loser that was draining Mercedes' resources.

When Schrempp was forced to step down in 2005, Chrysler lost much of its access to outside expertise in car development. As German investors increased demands on Daimler to shed Chrysler, U.S. product programs lost focus.

By the time Cerberus Capital Management LP acquired most of Chrysler in 2007, industry critics rated most Chrysler cars below average.

In December 2008, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli admitted as much. When Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., suggested Chrysler had few competitive vehicles under development, Nardelli agreed.

Under Daimler, Nardelli testified, Chrysler had been "somewhat hollowed out."

Sicuramente l'approccio di Fiat sarà meno supponente rispetto a quello di Daimler. Credo che la Fiat vada in America per "fare". D'altronde non ci sarebbe altro motivo, viste le casse vuote di Chrysler. L'iniezione di tecnologia pulita e bassi consumi giungono nel periodo storico migliore; ciò che non bisognerà sbagliare sarà l'impatto col cliente americano. Perciò più che operare epurazioni tout-court immagino che Marchionne e i suoi salveranno la parte buona del management senza dover inventare di sana pianta tutto il modus-operandi di una azienda stars&stripes d.o.c.
A dispetto delle fosche previsioni dei tanti detrattori, Marchionne & Co. hanno tirato fuori dalle braghe di tela un'azienda agonizzante riportandola ai vertici con la politica dei piccoli passi, spesso criticati (anche sul pistone) ma evidentemente sensati e mirati ad una politica industriale a lungo raggio. In virtù di ciò io sono del parere di dare la massima fiducia all'operazione.

Anche rispetto all'operazione Opel che in un primo tempo mi aveva perplesso, sono diventato ottimista in quanto pur essendo un marchio, questo, sovrapponibile alla FIAT, in un'ottica di economia di scala non minata da bieche logiche "fagocitarie" una eventuale fusione permetterebbe ai due marchi di progredire grazie a possibilità d'investimento molto più grandi e meglio ammortizzabili

se devo esser sincero io Opel la vedo meno "sovrapponibile" di quanto si pensi, in questo momento Fiat intesa come Fiat-Fiat...è forte soprattutto nel piccolo medio, vedi Panda, 500, Punto, Grande Punto etc..mentre Opel potrebbe dare un contributo con modelli come l'Insignia, Astra, Astra  SW etc..che tra l'altro non si sovrappongono neanche ad Alfa o Lancia..diciamo che se a questo punto ci si decidesse a fare sto benedetto 3.0 mjet con un automatico tradizionale, da usare per Fiat, Alfa, Lancia, Opel , Chrysler..non sarebbe male..

Sono sostanzialmente d'accordo  ;)

Già...l'accordo con Opel mi fa venire in mente un sacco di roba condivisa...climatizzatori,centraline elettroniche,sospensioni,motori..tutto da condividere...

< staff: rimosso su richiesta dell'utente >

si, ma l'acquirente Opel+Fiat+Chrysler ha maggior potere contrattuale nei confronti dei fornitori...

< staff: rimosso su richiesta dell'utente >

chissà se riuscira a seguire le orme della condivisione dove chi ben sapete riesce benissimo da molti anni ormai.

Come diceva qualcuno, comprare lo stesso climatizzatore in 2 o 6 milioni di pezzi è un altro contrattare...
Che poi i risparmi non siano passati agli utenti, almeno in soldoni è appurato, ma i componenti essendo acquistati per le top di gamma ne vanno a beneficiare anche le più in basso

scusate, oggi scrivo come il Dogui, spero mi perdonerete

Volendo tornare on topic, Hans hai qualche link in cui conoscere meglio la politica di Daimler anche nei confronti di Hyundai (di cui mi ricordo una partecipazione, se non vado errato) e di Mitsubishi, tutte collaborazioni dalle quali si è defilata..cosi solo se li hai "pronti"
senno' mi cerco qualcosa autonomamente.

Questo post si presta molto a considerazioni circa "cosa poteva fare Daimler e che cosa non ha fatto"..io non credo che tutte le colpe siano di Chrysler.

non me ne vorra' hans se posto un link dove è visibile, tra i commenti, l'umore degli automobilisti americani sulla gestione Daimler

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/27/daimler-agrees-to-give-up-remaining-stake-in-chrysler/

Quasi tutti i commenti rispechiono il tono dell'articolo ripreso da automotive news.
Ho anche dimenticato di ricordare la disastrosa gestione di Rover da parte della BMW.
Per quanto concerne Hyunday e Mitsubishi devo cercare  ;D

mah... alla fine rover era destinata a scomparire, e bmw vendette e si tenè e più buoni.

La tua è una asserzione illogica.
Non ha una logica economica far scomparire un marchio come Rover che vendeva bene specialmente in Inghilterra ed in altri paesi europei.

E nel mezzo ci smenò tanti di quei soldi da rischiare di andare a gambe all'aria.
L'acquisizione di Rover entrerà negli annali come NON fare....