German Car Zone

My point was, that things must have been really bad (worse than I and everyone else tought) in the Jürgen Schrempp era, and Dr. Zetsche camed in the nick of time.

^thats true..
lets all be happy that he did... and hope for more success for ALL german brands (besides opel..haha)

For Opel too.

I know hey, its amazing what a huge mess Schrempp Left behind. It really is sickening to think he wasn't dumped years ago.

I agree. That 5-year comment shocked me too. I knew they were behind Toyota, but by 5 years! Gulp. Mercedes was clearly being run nose first into the ground.

M

I know!! 5 years is like an eternity. In the next 5 years, i'm sure that Toyota and BMW would have made some major improvements in efficiency. Mercedes would have to go improve at an extremely fast rate in order to catch them.

Still, its great to see that Merc is improving. I'm really looking forward to the next E class.

He's the guy responsible IMO for MB's downfall. That's what happens when you let "accountants" take the helm. They cost cut. Cost-cutting is fine, but you have to make sure it is in the correct areas. Schrempp had costs cut in the most vital area: research and development.

Even worse, when he announced he was stepping down, he was given a retirement payment package of around 80 million Euros I believe (or was it 60 million?). To think that money could have gone into sanitizing MB instead of to Schrimpp...eh...Schrempp. Schrempp did little positive things for MB IMHO.

Toyota has always had efficient production standards. They're the ones who basically introduced the JIT (Just-In-Time) production methods. This allows them to be resourceful in terms of material storage and overall costs.

BMW I believe has recently begun to improve their production methods, at least that's the impression I get from reading www.focus.de.

Jurgen Schrempp didn't have an accounting background, he was a mechanical engineer by trade.

Although i don't think Schrempp was a good CEO- and i'm not going to defend him- MB recent woes in quality and productivity can't entirely be blamed on him. Jurgen Hubbert (ex-Merc boss) must also take a share of the blame and so can Hans-Joachim Schopf (ex-Merc R&D boss) and Helmut Petri (ex-Merc production boss). These people were also at the helm during 1997-2003. Hanh-Joachim Schopf, i read somewhere, was very tight on costs.

I love the expression "at the helm". Yeah there is plenty of blame to go around for the mess Mercedes is emerging from.

M