Corporate Espionage: GM Skunks Ford

When you think of corporate espionage, you think of documents exchanging hands in dark parking garages, or hackers breaking into company mainframes. But GM is better than all that, and instead opted to walk in the front door in their attempts to best the Ford F-150, the best-selling truck in America. That meant GM engineers joining public factory tours of Ford’s Dearborn plant.

The engineers studied Ford’s production methods and said, yeah, we can do better. ... armed with stopwatches and trained eyes, the GM engineers believed they saw problems.



“They had a real hard time getting those doors to fit,” Tim Herrick, the executive chief engineer for GM truck programs told Reuters. His team did more intelligence gathering. They bought and tore apart Ford F-series doors sold as repair parts. Their conclusion... more

The idea of giving plant tours ended years ago, just for this reason. It has been 32 years since you could watch a freakin' corn flake being made. If you give plant tours, STOP. ~Kevin

1986 - "They have stopped the public tours at the Kellogg Company...
The company says it had no choice. Spies from rival manufacturers were sneaking in with the tourists, it said. In fact, according to Joseph M. Stewart, a vice president, engineers from a foreign competitor took the tour 20 times before setting up a rival manufacturing operation." more