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How Ford has transformed its Product Development Process


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This was on last week’s “Autoline this Week.”  About 28 minutes long.  A very interesting interview with Jim Baumback, VP of Enterprise Product Line Management.  Baumback explains in detail Ford’s new product development process, e.g., how a “white paper” vehicle was imagined by a 20 person team in 12 weeks, approved by management, and then scheduled for production 2022.  Well worth the listen.

http://www.autoline.tv/journal/?p=63032

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2 hours ago, J-150 said:

And yet a Bronco based on existing architecture and powertrain takes how long?

The current T6 can't take a V type engine-part of the delay was waiting for upgraded frame for it so they could fit the 2.7L engine in it and awful timing of saying its coming back in January 2017. 

I don't think they where quite out of even product planning development at that time with it. 

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27 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

The current T6 can't take a V type engine-part of the delay was waiting for upgraded frame for it so they could fit the 2.7L engine in it and awful timing of saying its coming back in January 2017. 

I don't think they where quite out of even product planning development at that time with it. 

You have to wonder if their research told them that the Bronco buyer would not accept the 2.3EB, otherwise, why not release a T6 version?

HRG

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Just watched it. Interesting. 

I wonder if they used this process of every vehicle is it's own business line on products like Focus and Fiesta (and even Fusion) and the outcomes are what caused the "move to SUVs" i.e once those vehicles were made their own P & L centres and had the ruler run over them, they didn't make the cut. 

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5 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

The current T6 can't take a V type engine-part of the delay was waiting for upgraded frame for it so they could fit the 2.7L engine in it and awful timing of saying its coming back in January 2017. 

I don't think they where quite out of even product planning development at that time with it. 

Right after that announcement was made I asked around to some people I know, the Bronco hadn't even left the studio yet to begin any kind of design/engineering. Since then we've learned what we are getting next year is the 3rd proposed design with the first 2 being rejected and one of them (not sure which but it doesn't really matter), was reimagined as a unibody utility that became the baby Bronco. 

My theory, and some others here have echoed it as well, is the reason the program got green lit despite not even having been finalized in the studio was purely to give Ford NA leverage to bring the Ranger here after the decision was made to move the Focus from here at MAP to Mexico. 

Edited by fuzzymoomoo
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4 hours ago, HotRunrGuy said:

You have to wonder if their research told them that the Bronco buyer would not accept the 2.3EB, otherwise, why not release a T6 version?

HRG

It's not the buyer, it's the current T6 platform as we build it today. The platform can't fit a V6 at all without being seriously modified. Rumor is the base engine in the Bronco will be the 2.3EB anyway. 

Edited by fuzzymoomoo
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6 hours ago, mackinaw said:

I wondered how long it would be for the naysayers to chime in.

This is the new system Hackett has put into place, which means it started about two years ago.

But of course I expect nobody will actually watch this interview.  

Jim Baumbick lead the first T6 Ranger development in Australia between 2006 and 2010,
he would know all about T6 development process and what is and isn't possible.

Notice how he didn't say anything about why it took so long to develop Ranger and Bronco?

Also, notice how he was also careful to not identify what the white-paper vehicle was or what 
exactly was needed to bring it to production, it's easier to call up something as a derivative on 
an existing or near production ready platform than to start from scratch on the entire development. 

Quote

 

Jim Baumbick, Ford's vice president of enterprise product line management, on Wednesday said the automaker would by 2022 add an "affordable" nameplate aimed at filling the hole left by ending sales of the Fiesta, Focus, Fusion and Taurus sedans.

A Ford spokesman declined to say what sort of body style it would have or how big it would be.

"It's an example of how we're moving faster, working together differently and leveraging our five all-new flexible vehicle architectures," Ford said in a statement. "We came up with the concept in just 12 weeks using our new product creation process. Previous all-new vehicles could have taken years of research before receiving approval."

 

 

 

 

Edited by jpd80
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And again, the current Ranger was a super quick call up of the global truck after the final refresh was signed off in late 2016,
all they had time to do was the absolute minimum, stick an I-4 gas engine and 10-speed in there, a few frame changes and that's it.

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31 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

And again, the current Ranger was a super quick call up of the global truck after the final refresh was signed off in late 2016,
all they had time to do was the absolute minimum, stick an I-4 gas engine and 10-speed in there, a few frame changes and that's it.

They gave it some more tech too. Don't think the ROW Ranger has the off-road management system or the 4G LTE modem.

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2 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Right after that announcement was made I asked around to some people I know, the Bronco hadn't even left the studio yet to begin any kind of design/engineering. Since then we've learned what we are getting next year is the 3rd proposed design with the first 2 being rejected and one of them (not sure which but it doesn't really matter), was reimagined as a unibody utility that became the baby Bronco. 

My theory, and some others here have echoed it as well, is the reason the program got green lit despite not even having been finalized in the studio was purely to give Ford NA leverage to bring the Ranger here after the decision was made to move the Focus from here at MAP to Mexico. 

I agree that both were paired together to justify changing MAP

 

Edited by jpd80
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10 hours ago, J-150 said:

And yet a Bronco based on existing architecture and powertrain takes how long?

It's not existing architecture, everything in NG T6 is beng changed and re-engineered to cover more vehicles in the product envelope, Jim Baumbick actually was head of Eng on gen 1 T6 from 2006 through to 2010, he knows exactly what's involved with developing the Ranger. 

What Jim is talking about is the pre-development organization of exactly what product is needed, instead of starting a project and then finding that changes are needed during the engineering development when lots of money and resources are tied up.

The product idea his team took to engineering approval in 12 weeks, I suspect that it's based on a derivative of another vehicle being developed at the same time, Ford s being deliberately evasive about what a white space vehicle is but looks to be something of a car based crossover which gives us an idea of the direction they are floating......

Edited by jpd80
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I suspect that standardizing platforms globally has centralized platform costs allowing each vehicle to only pay for modifications and vehicle specific features.  That would streamline new product development especially if factory capacity is available.

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9 minutes ago, akirby said:

I suspect that standardizing platforms globally has centralized platform costs allowing each vehicle to only pay for modifications and vehicle specific features.  That would streamline new product development especially if factory capacity is available.

This,
So much of previous vehicle development cost was reinventing the wheel for each new vehicle on a platform
instead of properly scoping the needs of the basic architecture and product envelope at the start of the project.
the more than can be done and squared away at the start, the easier it is to do successive models, which is why
Bronco s taking so long on NG T6 but the NG Ranger will only be about 12 months behind (US maybe bit longer).

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  • 2 months later...
On 8/17/2019 at 1:44 AM, fuzzymoomoo said:

Right after that announcement was made I asked around to some people I know, the Bronco hadn't even left the studio yet to begin any kind of design/engineering. Since then we've learned what we are getting next year is the 3rd proposed design with the first 2 being rejected and one of them (not sure which but it doesn't really matter), was reimagined as a unibody utility that became the baby Bronco. 

My theory, and some others here have echoed it as well, is the reason the program got green lit despite not even having been finalized in the studio was purely to give Ford NA leverage to bring the Ranger here after the decision was made to move the Focus from here at MAP to Mexico. 

 

Eww ... the Maverick/baby/"yet to be named rugged off road small utility" will no doubt serve plenty of people well, but that certainly would have been a travesty to rival GMs handling of the Blazer nameplate if Ford had launched a thing like that as the Bronco.

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1 hour ago, Stampede.Offroad said:

 

Eww ... the Maverick/baby/"yet to be named rugged off road small utility" will no doubt serve plenty of people well, but that certainly would have been a travesty to rival GMs handling of the Blazer nameplate if Ford had launched a thing like that as the Bronco.


That was never the plan.  Only the styling was proposed for the Bronco - not the platform.  After they rejected the styling for Bronco they said hey what if we put that styling on an Escape and baby Bronco was born.

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46 minutes ago, akirby said:


That was never the plan.  Only the styling was proposed for the Bronco - not the platform.  After they rejected the styling for Bronco they said hey what if we put that styling on an Escape and baby Bronco was born.

 

Its kind of ironic that the 2 will look similar, yet distinct at the same time. 

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