Memo - Essay Example

Apart from increasing number of warranty claims, there were also increasing number of accidents resulting into deaths however, everything went unnoticed. The Firestone Tires debacle is considered as one of the deadliest security and safety crises in United States because it not only involved two giants of automobile industry but also reflected an attitude towards safety and security during driving which otherwise would have warranted great care and pre-emptive efforts to avoid such problems for recurring.

The 15” ATX and ATXII tires of Firestone tires used in Ford’s explorer recorded increasing number of failures as at high speeds, the tread tend to peel off and push the vehicle to rollover and accidentally kill the driver. (Ackman). This recurrence of accidents was also communicated by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to Ford regarding the growing number of accidents on its Explorer Brand. The exploration of the problem suggested that the tire failure rates were higher with the tires made at the Firestone’s Decatur, Illions plant.

A rational analysis of the facts suggests that the basic cause of the problem was the lowering of the air to 26 psi from recommended 35 psi required for maintaining the balance of Ford’s Explorer while driving. The reduction in the air load was done as a part of the recommendations by the engineers to change the design of the vehicle as it overturned during a testing phase. In order to analyse this problem, it is critical that we must breakdown the problem into manageable parts so that it becomes easy to analyses and evaluates the different options and alternatives.

From the available facts, the Firestone debacle seems to be a problem of missed opportunities because during the testing phase, it was clear that the tires were unsuitable for the use in Explorer and despite such indications, the management of the Ford went on to allow