ABB and Ford: Creating Value through Cooperation

More than three years ago, Thomas Lyons et al. noted that U.S. manufacturers and their suppliers were being pushed by world-class competition to develop new styles of relating to one another.1 This changing climate was manifest in:

• The emergence of multifunctional teams for the development of cross-technological projects;
• The reduction of the total number of suppliers;
• The lengthening of contracts so that they spanned component lifetimes;
• The increased reliance on suppliers for such services as design, research and development, and engineering; and
• The acquisition of components and subassemblies rather than individual parts.

Lyons et al. portrayed manufacturers as generally enthusiastic about these trends and as initiators who looked for ways to improve quality, reduce project cost, reduce complexity in vendor relationships, and enhance R&D support. They stereotyped suppliers, on the other hand, as reticent and fearful of disclosing confidential information, of expanding services without compensation, and of losing operational autonomy. The authors challenged the industrial community to manage the evolution of these emerging relationships cooperatively, with the benefits shared equally among the participating parties.

A year later, on the basis of a survey of U.S. automotive suppliers, Susan Helper reported that the suppliers’ fears were justified.2 The old behavior of aggressive competition persisted. The large (and more powerful) manufacturers extracted concessions and achieved improvements at the expense of the smaller (and less powerful) suppliers. Through the eyes of the supplier, the climate of cooperation had not emerged; manufacturers reaped the gains, suppliers lost their margins. Helper argued that the future of cooperative buyer-supplier relationships was at a crossroads, and she believed that, in the extreme, suppliers might even withdraw from the automotive industry when faced with such inequitable conditions.

While adversarial practices are very tempting and commonly employed, they do present barriers to creating innovative solutions, to capturing embedded or process knowledge of suppliers, and to reshaping industry organization. These missed opportunities may dominate any incremental gains from squeezing purchasing costs. This article presents a case study of the Ford-ABB Oak-ville Paint-Finishing Project (hereafter called Oakville) that we hope will rekindle optimism for cooperative and innovative buyer-supplier relationships in the U.S. automotive industry and in other industries where adversarial practices are common. In Oakville, ABB and Ford have created a genuine, mutually beneficial, win-win relationship and have innovated beyond the current practices of the Japanese automotive industry. We will chronicle the ABB-Ford experience and extract from it several key success factors that we hope will permit others to benefit from the ABB-Ford project.

The Oakville Project

The Oakville project was the design and construction of one of the largest automotive paint-finishing plants in the world: a 730,000-square-foot, 75-car-per-hour, $300 million facility attached to Ford’s Oakville, Can-ada, assembly plant.

Not only is Oakville a large project by anyone’s standards, but it also houses a particularly challenging and critical aspect of the automotive production process. As a result of the Japanese expertise in fit-and-finish, the quality of an automobile’s finish (visual appearance as well as durability) has become increasingly important in a customer’s purchase decision. Paint finishing is a sensitive process comprising many steps, each of which compounds the chances of defect. Rejection rates are high; 25 percent is normal and 10 percent is exceptional. As a result, throughput rates suffer, and paint finishing requires five of the thirty hours needed to produce an automobile. Moreover, the environmental problems associated with paint finishing are considerable because less than 80 percent of the paint directed at the automobile actually reaches it. These large amounts of free spray create significant emission problems that demand sophisticated environmental controls. In summary, the pressures of market, technology, and environment have created considerable technical challenges for a paint-finishing facility and call for state-of-the-art responses.

In addition to the technical challenges, the construction of a paint-finishing facility is a complex undertaking, with complicated design and intricate interfaces among the manufacturing processes. A project the size of Oakville normally involves more than thirty different suppliers satisfying more than two hundred bid packages with more than one thousand on-site employees. Oakville was more difficult than usual because the Canadian plant had a workweek of only thirty-six hours, weather conditions that could lead to schedule delays, strong trade unions with specific and demanding practices, and foreign exchange risk.

Although Oakville was an exceptionally large and challenging project, it was one of several paint-finishing facilities that Ford planned to construct worldwide and one of many paint-finishing facilities being built by other companies both within and outside the automotive industry. Oakville was neither a one-shot opportunity within Ford nor one within the broader scope of paint-finishing facilities.

Ford’s Objectives: Quality, Timeliness, Low Price, and No Risk

Ford was planning to produce its new Tempo and Topaz models in Oakville and had decided to use leading-edge paint-finishing technology. As part of a companywide effort to improve its global competitiveness, Ford had committed itself to achieving a 25 percent to 30 percent reduction in the cost of its capital investment projects (in particular, the cost of Oakville) as compared to similar undertakings in the past. This improvement was to be achieved through new efficiencies in design, engineering, layout, and supplier performance. Benchmarking against foreign and domestic competitors had convinced Ford that such cost improvement was possible, but the company had yet to define the detailed procedures needed to achieve the improvement.

Benchmarking had also persuaded Ford that it could reduce the time for completion of capital projects and, as a result, shorten the time for its new products to reach the market. Despite the complexity of the Oakville project, Ford allotted only two years (from January 1990 to December 1991) from bid invitation to the turnover of an operational facility. This was a substantial reduction from anything in Ford’s prior experience.

Ford also did not want to be exposed to the typical risks of cost overruns and time delays. As a result, the company decided to offer the Oakville facility as a “turnkey” project to a single, “full-service” contractor that would assume management responsibility for the entire project. Although other industries (refinery, utilities, and nuclear power) had undertaken turnkey projects, they were not Ford’s or the automobile industry’s traditional approach. In the late 1980s, however, the full-service concept had aroused the industry’s interest, and some companies had begun to experiment with the approach. Ford had been close to awarding its first turnkey project in late 1989 (not coincidentally to ABB), but weak market conditions caused Ford to cancel the project at the last minute.

Traditionally, a company such as Ford would assign a team of one or two engineers the responsibility for each discipline — building, structural work, electrical services, conveyor systems, ovens, booths, and spraying processes. Each small team would then work with a contractor to perform its portion of the job. This decentralized approach gave rise to constant coordination problems, extensive engineering and design rework, schedule delays, safety hazards, and problematical facility launches. Cost overruns on such projects could be as high as 10 percent of total project cost.

ABB’s Objectives: Customer Satisfaction, Profitable Business, and Customary Risk

With a market value of $11 billion (as compared to $17 billion for Ford), ABB is one of the twenty-five largest European-based companies. It was formed by the merger of the Swedish ASEA and the Swiss company, Brown Boveri. ABB is a global electric company whose portfolio of expertise includes power generation, power transmission and distribution, mass transportation, environmental controls, and industrial process optimization.

In the mid-1980s, in the face of languishing performance in its paint-finishing business area, ABB affirmed its commitment to the business with the proviso that more effective relationships with the automotive companies be developed. To foster these relationships, ABB launched three strategic initiatives. First, it strengthened the internal capabilities of the paint-finishing division by recruiting experienced engineers and acquiring small companies with unique expertise and technology. Second, ABB undertook efforts to demonstrate to the manufacturers the value of the turnkey approach —ABB was a participant in the construction of the Mazda Flatrock plant that ultimately became a benchmark for the industry. This project provided the initial contact between Ford and ABB. Finally, and most important, ABB worked at developing innovative approaches to doing business in paint finishing and, in particular, at defining valuable solutions for becoming an effective supplier of turnkey projects. Among those solutions, ABB formed a partnership with Fluor Daniel to add capabilities in construction project management to its portfolio of expertise.

When discussing the Oakville project with Ford, ABB had positioned itself as a potential player in the global automotive paint-finishing business but had not firmly established that role. The Oakville project could demonstrate to the industry that ABB was indeed a key player in global engineering and project management, one that could create economies for its clients through strong engineering and astute project management. If a project the size of Oakville were to have execution problems, the financial impact on ABB’s paint-finishing business area could be significant; therefore, risks had to be minimized. Oakville could, in summary, make or break the business area’s future.

From Confrontation to Implementation

In early January 1990, Ford approached ABB with an invitation to bid as a full-service contractor. The relationship got off to an all-too-common start: Ford gave ABB a short deadline (one week) by which to develop a fixed-price proposal for a total project that would be responsive to Ford’s process and design specifications. ABB met the deadline. The proposal satisfied the Ford specifications, made use of advanced but well-known technology, was based on rough estimates of subcontractor costs, and included a risk premium commensurate with the challenges of the project. One of the important challenges was that Ford had decided to innovate with this facility and, at the time of the bid, was still considering alternatives for improving several critical components of the project. While this unsettled situation might offer ABB the opportunity for lucrative change orders, a shifting project definition could, on the other hand, threaten the project’s integrity and risk its ultimate success. ABB’s quoted price, approximately $300 million, was close to the typical industry price and, as a result, was not even close to meeting Ford’s cost reduction goal of 25 percent to 30 percent. Ford immediately rejected the offer.

In many situations, such a rejection would trigger a sequence of negotiations on how to reduce costs, create intricate payment schedules, and craft formulas for rework compensation. Even with the best of intentions, the discussions could be confrontational and debilitating. The results could be determined by the power associated with each party’s size or relative core competencies.

In this particular instance, ABB and Ford took a different direction. They entered into a “deferred fixed-price contract” — a three-step process that involved establishing an appropriation price, executing a three-month cooperative-engineering contract, and submitting a final fixed-price bid.

Step One.

The appropriation price was approximately 10 percent less than ABB’s initial bid and was a fixed price at which ABB would be willing to deliver the facility that was proposed in its quotation. Because Ford’s interest was in getting the final price as low as possible without compromising performance or schedule, it saw the 10 percent reduction as a step in the right direction, assuming the proposed facility met performance expectations. In addition, the appropriation price offered the promise of an even lower final price and greater assurance of facility performance on completion of the cooperative-engineering phase. ABB agreed with this assessment and was convinced that cooperative engineering would enable it to quote an even lower price, maintain its profitability, and not incur any more risk than is normal in projects of this nature (possibly even reducing that risk). ABB and Ford agreed to a formula for sharing the cost reductions: all cost reductions that resulted from firming up the project specifications and the subcontractors’ bids would go to Ford through a decrease in the appropriation price; all further cost reductions that resulted from new solutions created by the joint value-engineering efforts would benefit Ford and ABB according to a pre-established split. Both companies retained the option of not contracting for the project at the end of cooperative engineering if the final pricing was not acceptable. The appropriation price was a way to signal an intention to cooperate without either party actually committing to the results of that cooperation.

Step Two.

The three-month cooperative-engineering phase permitted Ford and ABB to bring their respective distinctive competencies to bear on the final design of the facility. Ford contributed its understanding of the appropriate tradeoffs among performance specifications and its experience in operating paint facilities. ABB contributed its understanding of the state-of-the-art technology and its expertise in process design. The cooperative-engineering phase also permitted the design to be carried out in the proper sequence — engineer the paint processes, then engineer booths and ovens, and finally design the building. As a result, the Oakville building could be designed to house the process instead of the more common method of designing the process to fit the building. Not only did this approach reduce expenses by changing the building footprint, but it also enhanced the process through a rearrangement of the process flow.

The postponement in establishing the final price also gave ABB and Ford time to understand more fully the potential schedule and process risks and to find means to avoid most of those risks before the start of construction. The delay allowed Ford and ABB to work together and develop trust in each other. It also permitted ABB to firm up subcontractor prices that, because of the tight bidding schedule, had been based on rough estimates (plus significant risk premiums). The discussions with the subcontractors resulted in lower cost estimates than were originally incorporated in the appropriation price and a savings to Ford. Finally, the postponement created the opportunity to encourage more internal dialogue among the two companies’ departments.

Step Three.

The final fixed-price bid provided each party the opportunity to step away from the relationship without significant loss. If the process innovations, which ABB believed would reduce the cost of the project, were not as beneficial as anticipated, ABB would set the final price near the appropriation price. If Ford’s performance specifications required a plant whose cost exceeded the appropriation price, ABB would specify a final price higher than the appropriation price. In either case, Ford could decide if it would go ahead based on direct knowledge of the technology, its costs, and its anticipated performance. If Ford were not to continue with ABB, the engineering time would not be totally wasted because it would be partially transferable to another contractor. In actuality, the cooperative-engineering phase allowed both parties to agree comfortably to a fixed price that was approximately 25 percent below the initial bid. The underlying design was substantially different from the original Ford proposal — a smaller footprint, a multistory instead of one-story structure, and a reconfigured conveyor system. In addition, the resulting project promised delivery of a facility that did not compromise (and in some areas exceeded) the initial specifications.

From Ford’s point of view, the redefined Oakville project met its initial objectives (quality, on-time delivery, low price, and no risk) and actually resulted in one of the best on-time project launches it had ever achieved. Similarly, ABB was able to satisfy its initial objectives of demonstrating that it could manage a high customer-value contract that provided ABB with the same profitability as the initial bid but at a lower level of risk.

In addition to modifying the contracting process, ABB created a partnership with Fluor Daniel as a means to provide win/win incentives for the major contributor to the process equipment (ABB) and the principal contractor for the building (Fluor Daniel). ABB had selected Fluor Daniel as the building subcontractor for the previous turnkey project that Ford had nearly awarded to ABB. The working relationship on the planning for that project was positive, so partnership on Oakville was not a difficult step for either party.

Although in typical paint-finishing projects, the building constitutes only 25 percent to 30 percent of the total value of the project, it could represent a disproportionate share of the change order costs. While ABB anticipated that the cooperative-engineering phase of the contract process could eliminate a significant portion of the change orders, it realized that further building enhancements might be recognized as construction proceeded. Some of these improvements might result in overall project savings, but with no specific benefit to the building contractor; others might result in reduction of work for the building contractor. Traditional subcontractor relationships would discourage the acknowledgement of either of these types of improvements. The ABB/Fluor Daniel joint venture, however, associated the construction company with the overall result of the project (a percentage share of the joint-venture profits) and motivated it to aggressively seek solutions beneficial to the whole project. In addition, with Fluor Daniel as a member of the management team, the frequently encountered, building-related change order decisions were made jointly with the construction company rather than through the more confrontational methods that are so often a source of conflicts among the customer, the construction company, and the other vendors.

By creating for Oakville an innovative contracting process and a joint venture for building construction, neither ABB/Fluor Daniel nor Ford compromised their initial objectives and neither achieved gains at the expense of the other. Ford did not simply transfer risk to its supplier or squeeze its supplier’s margins. ABB/Fluor Daniel and Ford managed to create a new way to conduct their business that resulted in a genuine win-win outcome.

Creating Trust

Both the Ford/ABB and the ABB/Fluor Daniel relationships in Oakville were dependent on trust. In each case, there had been a successful, albeit brief, precedent for working together. These prior contacts, however, do not seem to have been adequate to create a sufficient level of trust for a nonconventional approach to Oakville. Why then were the parties willing to push this dimension of trust and move from the traditional hierarchical relationships between buyer and supplier to the innovation of relational relationships?3 Partially because they had little choice. Ford’s traditional contracting methods (internally generated design specifications broken into hundreds of component bid packages that were coordinated by a variety of functional area managers) were not producing cost-competitive facilities. ABB’s strategy for paint finishing was predicated on developing close working relationships with its customers and demonstrating its ability to be an effective single-source supplier of major engineering projects. Beyond the apparent need for a cooperative relationship, the companies created the necessary trust as a result of the process they employed for working together. They formed a governance structure that brought about repeated encounters; they used the passage of time to their advantage; they created open and simple structures for sharing financial benefits. These trust-developing mechanisms were an important key to the success of the Oakville project and would not have been available through traditional competitive-bidding processes.

Limitations of Traditional Competitive-Bidding Processes

The tradition within the U.S. automotive industry (and in many other industries) is to rely on competitive bidding for awarding contracts. While competitive bidding is a powerful device for eliciting a supplier’s lowest price at the time of the contract and for encouraging incremental improvements, competitive bidding does not foster a supplier’s innovation. The lack of time, the risk of not recouping developmental costs, and the risk of an innovation finding its way to a potential winner without compensation to the innovator often force suppliers to stick with original specifications despite the invitations in many requests for proposals (RFPs) to suggest alternative designs. As a result, the competitive-bidding process discourages suppliers from pursuing innovations outside of proven frames of reference. Implicitly, buyers are assuming that the supplier market is homogeneous, that vendors are substitutable, and that the project requires little nonredeployable investment by the contractors. Consequently, if breakthrough innovation is to occur, it has to originate primarily with the manufacturers.

Not only does the competitive-bidding process make tapping the innovative potential of suppliers difficult, it makes innovation by the manufacturers very costly. While benchmarking identifies new concepts and the magnitude of potential cost savings, it does not specify the precise path that a manufacturer and its suppliers should follow to capture those savings. In the face of this rather vague direction and because competitive bidding obliges manufacturers to irrevocably fix all the specifications (process performance as well as equipment) at the very start of the bidding process, the frequent outcome is costly change orders to the initial specifications.

Even though competitive bidding has value in a variety of situations, it creates a potentially unhealthy lottery for all parties when applied to situations requiring innovation. Two outcomes may result:

• A supplier takes the risk of bidding at a low (competitive) price for a project requiring an unresearched solution but is unlucky and unable to deliver. This outcome confronts both the supplier and the manufacturer with serious difficulties.
• A supplier is lucky and finds a way to deliver the requested solution within the price of the bid. This outcome has very different results depending on whether the solution is found within the original specifications of the project or within redefined specifications. If the successful supplier finds a solution within the original specifications, then both the supplier and the manufacturer will generally share the benefit of the innovation, and the competitive-bidding process will have worked effectively. If, on the other hand, success requires revised specifications, much of the value of the innovation will be siphoned off by the supplier in the form of change-order profits, and the manufacturer may not benefit from the innovation.

The contracting process for Oakville was appropriate in a situation that requires innovation and where technological development is significant but relatively controlled, not explosive. It would not be appropriate at either extreme of technological change. If technological development were a minor aspect of product development, competitive bidding would elicit minimum cost without compromising innovation. If technological development were explosive, competitive bidding would maintain a portfolio of suppliers and reduce the risk of having a supplier whose technological direction may be unsuccessful.

Critical Sources of Value and Lessons for the Future

The first critical dimension of the Oakville process was the innovative structure that Ford and ABB adopted for their relationship. Instead of forming a relationship around an initial and often dramatic price negotiation (the competitive-bidding process), they structured a series of repeat relationships over an extended period of time. The cooperative-engineering phase was the foundation for an effective exchange of the complex knowledge and experience that Ford, ABB, Fluor Daniel, and the other subcontractors had. This sort of process knowledge (in contrast to declarative or factual knowledge) is difficult to exchange and transfer because it is embedded in a firm’s personnel and infrastructure. Only sustained relationships allow time for cross-fertilization, the compression of total project time, and the achievement of exceptionally tight schedules. As a result, relationships that encourage or mandate repeated encounters offer a means to develop and test the climate of trust, both internally and externally, that is a prerequisite of cooperation.4

The second critical dimension of Oakville was the creative use of time. Ford and ABB decided to defer fixing the final specifications and the price until they had made a full investigation of the project and completed a comprehensive and definite design. This approach significantly reduced the self-inflicted risks that are often created by the traditional competitive-bidding process. In a competitive bid, price is the starting point; at Oak-ville, price was the final step, taken only when almost everything was known. The risk reduction and the resulting benefits to all parties created the conditions for a genuine win-win situation. In addition, the passage of time before fixing the contract permitted both parties the opportunity to recognize the benefits of their cooperative relationship.

The third critical dimension was the development of a contractual structure for sharing future savings. By specifying an appropriate price and allowing for the cooperative-engineering phase, both ABB and Ford would benefit from the savings created by innovative design. The ABB/Fluor Daniel joint venture allowed the sharing of benefits from changes identified during the construction phase. By establishing a well-defined means for dividing mutual gain (the Ford/ABB sharing of cost reductions resulting from cooperative engineering and the ABB/Fluor Daniel sharing of project profits), all parties were able to focus their attention on how to create that gain rather than on the distractions of claiming those gains before they were even created.

The fourth critical aspect of the Oakville process was the enrichment of the purchasing process. Purchasing focused more on acquiring a system rather than on acquiring component parts; more on minimizing total cost than on minimizing elemental costs; more on capturing process knowledge than on just buying hardware; more on developing meaningful relationships with a few suppliers than on enlarging the supplier base. Within the context of the Oakville project, the Ford project manager and the Ford engineering managers became key players in the purchasing activity. This broadened participation provided the organizational latitude within which mutual value could be created through enriching, internal dialogue.

These four dimensions suggest several lessons for creating cooperative win-win relationships in the future:

• Acknowledge and respect mutual strengths. Mutual strengths initially bring the buyer and supplier together. One party’s failure to acknowledge and respect the strengths of the other party creates the temptation to dominate the relationship and impedes the process of creating mutual value. The more symmetrically both parties view the relationship, the better the climate for cooperation.
• Broaden perspective. It is important to maintain sight of the total product cost, rather than just the purchasing expense or just the component cost. A narrow perspective ignores alternative designs that may trade off components against each other or enhance a single component for the benefit of the total product. Such alternatives may be beneficial for both buyer and supplier.
• Use time creatively. There are situations in which compressing time increases risks. Irrevocably locking in specifications or prices before the certain outcomes are known creates asymmetrical risks for either the buyer or the supplier. Quick closings also preclude the opportunity for a meaningful relationship and the benefits of cooperation. If at all possible, participants should look for ways to postpone the final fixed-price bid and to structure contracts that are contingent on the outcome or resolution of uncertainty.
• Structure repeat discussions. Cooperative relationships are a succession of transactions. They require interaction between the relevant parties so that they acknowledge the mutual benefits of cooperation, establish trust, and create innovative alternatives. Often a history of contentious buyer-supplier relationships makes these interactions unnatural and difficult. An explicit structure or process for repeated discussions may help to overcome barriers.
• Reframe contract negotiations. Price negotiations are inherently win-lose discussions. Launching a relationship on such a confrontational note creates a climate that may prevent the exchange of information critical to creating cooperative alternatives. Although the parties need to feel, from the early stages of discussions, that pricing is within the expected range, they should not determine the final price until late in the discussion. Price should be the consequence of discussions, not the initiator of discussions.
• Marshal distinctive competencies. While it is easy to acknowledge the mutual value that emerges from patentable competencies or access to distinctive markets, there is also considerable value in the embedded knowledge of both the buyer and the seller. This knowledge can take many forms: effective management processes, technological predilections from prior successes or failures, experiences with key product or production factors. The relationship needs to capture this more subtle knowledge and extend to include subsuppliers who possess valuable competencies.
• Establish processes to share mutual gain. Claiming value can easily distract from creating value. To avoid that distraction, it is important to establish explicitly and simply a way to divide the benefits that emerge from a cooperative venture. In the absence of such a mechanism, each party will be tempted to position itself to be the greater beneficiary of the mutual gain and may preclude the venture from creating that gain.

Further Opportunities and Challenges

Ford, ABB, and other suppliers have established a knowledge link, the value of which will increase with experience. So far, the dialogue between the companies has focused mostly on reducing the cost to the automaker and the risk to the supplier. Because paint finishing is not only a source of cost but also a source of value to the automaker, the dialogue might be even more beneficial to both parties if it were to shift from cost to value. From this perspective, perhaps innovative solutions to such questions as how to reduce rework, how to reduce paint waste and emissions, and how to improve the appearance of the paint finish might be found.

While the cooperative approaches of the Oakville project suggest further opportunities, there are also certain challenges:

• Even though the senior managers of many automakers are currently promoting cooperation with suppliers, staff and line managers who have become accustomed to squeezing suppliers may have difficulty adopting a cooperative mindset. How can an entire organization be invited and encouraged to shift from competition to cooperation?
• Cooperation requires the exchange of considerable amounts of possibly sensitive information. How can control procedures be established that are compatible with cooperation?
• Cooperation is most easily achieved when both partners are equally strong. With the emergence of strong suppliers, how can the automakers avoid the temptation of returning to the practice of fierce competition?
• Cooperation requires the full acceptance and appreciation of differences in expertise among the various parties and the resolve to preserve those differences. How can the enticing alternative of simply acquiring the skills and technologies of subcontractors directly be avoided in favor of trying to engage those subcontractors in a series of value-adding partnerships?