Ford Honcho Concerned About Suppliers’ Stability

Unlike General Motors and Chrysler, relatively healthy Ford Motor Co. isn’t taking dough from the feds. But it’s keeping a wary eye on its rivals as they do. While Ford wishes the pair well while they restructure, one of its main concerns is that its supplier base stays healthy through the effort, since Ford shares 70 to 80 percent of its suppliers with the other big automakers. Going forward, “if there isn’t debtor-in-possession financing [in place] to allow the supply base to continue to deliver parts to some of our competitors and still get paid, that would cause a severe disruption in the supply base,” Mark Fields, the president of Ford’s Americas division, said in North Texas today. The rivals “wouldn’t be able to run their factories and, because we share many of the same suppliers, [those suppliers] would not be able to supply parts to us to keep our plants running.” Fields, a youthful-looking 48–he’s pictured here–was in DFW for a Texas auto writers event at Texas Motor Speedway.