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29 minutes ago, 02MustangGT said:

Ok now you are contradicting what you stated earlier:  “like I said, retooling an old plant will cause problems - no way around it”

 

The F-150 plant retools did not result in major product quality issues?  It’s kind of a rhetorical question.  Ford knows how to retool plants, there should be no decline in quality.   So now we have only the suppliers to blame right?   Face it, quality is no longer job 1 under Hackett. It’s been well documented.   

 

I guarantee there were F150 problems after retooling, but they seemed to have fixed them before job 1.  They also had 2 plants so production wasn’t 100% down like CAP.  Also other than the new aluminum body panels the rest of the truck was just an update of the previous model.  CD6 was a brand new platform from the ground up.  Different suppliers.  Different plant.  

 

jcartwright99 nailed it.  They simply chose not to put as many resources on CAP and chose not to delay job 1 when they had issues.

 

Are there things Ford could have done to minimize or eliminate problems after job 1?  Of course.  That doesn’t negate that retooling the plant caused some of those issues in the first place.

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38 minutes ago, akirby said:

 

I guarantee there were F150 problems after retooling, but they seemed to have fixed them before job 1.  They also had 2 plants so production wasn’t 100% down like CAP.  Also other than the new aluminum body panels the rest of the truck was just an update of the previous model.  CD6 was a brand new platform from the ground up.  Different suppliers.  Different plant.  

 

jcartwright99 nailed it.  They simply chose not to put as many resources on CAP and chose not to delay job 1 when they had issues.

 

Are there things Ford could have done to minimize or eliminate problems after job 1?  Of course.  That doesn’t negate that retooling the plant caused some of those issues in the first place.

Your lack of understanding of the issue at hand is comical.   Regardless of the number of suppliers or plants or the age of the plant (which you seem to think is a root cause), Ford quality has been on decline the last several years.  Hence the recalls and complaints that have been filed.  Why are you still trying to make excuses for lack of quality?

Edited by 02MustangGT
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14 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

He's not. He's pointing out the issues aren't what you think they are

Huh?  So what do I think the issues are?  
 

They certainly aren’t related to retooling a plant for a new model....which as akirby points out as the root cause (old plant, etc). You of all people here should know that retooling a plant is not the root cause of quality issues such as the reports filed on the Explorer/Aviator.  
 

Edited by 02MustangGT
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33 minutes ago, 02MustangGT said:

Huh?  So what do I think the issues are?  
 

They certainly aren’t related to retooling a plant for a new model....which as akirby points out as the root cause (old plant, etc). You of all people here should know that retooling a plant is not the root cause of quality issues such as the reports filed on the Explorer/Aviator.  
 

 

I have to be very careful here so I don't get myself into trouble, so I'll try to keep this to stuff that can be verified with some research that I don't have time to do since it's my lunch break right now as I type this. 

 

The scale of retooling certainly could be a big part of issues. Any time you have a massive change in machinery like that, the entire body shop being gutted for instance, it takes a Herculean effort to get all of the robots and crossover elevators synchronized. Then there's final assembly where nearly every single job had to be changed for the new model Explorer, plus an entirely new Lincoln so the entire workforce (even inspectors) has to be retrained which is also a monumental task. 

 

Some of the problems could also be vendor problems too, for reasons someone else already discussed so I won't rehash that.

 

The age of the plant doesn't have much to do with it other than less than ideal layout possibilities which means creative solutions are probably required. Having a lower roof than some of the newer plants and more support columns to work around are probably (again, speculating looking at it having never set foot in that plant) the biggest obstacles. Just because the buildings were built in 1921 or whatever doesn't necessarily mean all the equipment inside is that old. MAP was opened in the 60s, the current body shop was built sometime in the 80s I believe, yet everything in here is only about a year old, with more equipment to be installed next year for the Bronco. 

 

Its very unfortunate any of these problems have made it into the hands of the public to the point where the Detroit Free Press is writing about it, and if I were in Jim Hackett's position heads would be rolling right now, because as mentioned elsewhere here this isn't the first time we have seen something like this, in this decade no less.

Edited by fuzzymoomoo
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IMO something going wrong isn’t that big of a deal as long as it can be ironed out relatively quickly. The irritating part is for some reason, Ford does not learn from past mistakes. This company stays in a cycle. It will do poor in an area, have a knee jerk reaction, reset and promise to fix it all. Then everything is pretty good for a while and then we go down this road again. A retired Ford warranty auditor told me many years ago, “you can see the attitude of the owner throughout the entire dealer “. So is this the case? Does the Ford Family let this cycle keep happening? 

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9 hours ago, 02MustangGT said:

Huh?  So what do I think the issues are?  
 

They certainly aren’t related to retooling a plant for a new model....which as akirby points out as the root cause (old plant, etc). You of all people here should know that retooling a plant is not the root cause of quality issues such as the reports filed on the Explorer/Aviator.  
 

 

Let me try one more time to explain this.   Retooling is not the root cause of why so many defective products were released to the public.   That's probably a combination of supplier issues on certain parts that either changed or got worse after job 1 and/or (most likelyh) not wanting to delay production long enough to ensure all these problems were worked out before job 1.


But there had to have been issues from the retooling that had to be corrected.   You can't replace every piece of equipment and expect it to work perfectly the first time you turn it on.  The problem is how Ford handled those problems from a timing and resource issue. 

 

So describing why the problems occurred in the first place is different than saying they couldn't have done anything about it.   So yes, Hackett is responsible for the resources and the schedule that lead to the problems after job 1.

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2 hours ago, fordtech1 said:

IMO something going wrong isn’t that big of a deal as long as it can be ironed out relatively quickly. The irritating part is for some reason, Ford does not learn from past mistakes. This company stays in a cycle. It will do poor in an area, have a knee jerk reaction, reset and promise to fix it all. Then everything is pretty good for a while and then we go down this road again. A retired Ford warranty auditor told me many years ago, “you can see the attitude of the owner throughout the entire dealer “. So is this the case? Does the Ford Family let this cycle keep happening? 

 

Speaking with 30+ years of corporate experience, that is exactly what happens when the changes you put in place to fix the problem aren't permanent.  That's why root cause analysis is so important.  The root cause here is probably squeezing suppliers too hard and rushing job 1 too fast.  You're always going to have problems but you should do what is reasonable to reduce the problems and make sure you can properly handle the ones you can't control.

 

The 5 day requirement for perfect builds to make job 1 is probably sufficient for most cases, but maybe that needs to be 10-15 days or longer on a brand new platform and/or new tooling.  Or a much longer pre production cycle.  But all that costs money and resources so the company (Hackett) must be willing to trade additional expense and some lost revenue to achieve higher quality.   So far that hasn't been evident.

 

If Hackett tomorrow said we will not have these kinds of problems again and he holds his direct reports accountable (financially) and makes quality a more important metric than sales and profits and they cascade that down the line and the employees feel empowered to point out problems and they're rewarded for doing so, then it will get better.   Anything less than that and the bean counters will eventually win.

 

Ford has obviously made a conscious tradeoff that says a few problems are ok and it's better to get the product out the door as quickly and cheaply as possible than to delay it another month.   And maybe financially that's true - they gain more from a month of sales than they lose due to quality issues.   But it sure is frustrating.

 

To Hackett's credit he's not just cutting costs to pocket it or prop up the books.  He's reinvesting that in new products (as opposed to Fields who just hoarded the cash).   Still frustrating.

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11 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

 

I have to be very careful here so I don't get myself into trouble, so I'll try to keep this to stuff that can be verified with some research that I don't have time to do since it's my lunch break right now as I type this. 

 

The scale of retooling certainly could be a big part of issues. Any time you have a massive change in machinery like that, the entire body shop being gutted for instance, it takes a Herculean effort to get all of the robots and crossover elevators synchronized. Then there's final assembly where nearly every single job had to be changed for the new model Explorer, plus an entirely new Lincoln so the entire workforce (even inspectors) has to be retrained which is also a monumental task. 

 

Some of the problems could also be vendor problems too, for reasons someone else already discussed so I won't rehash that.

 

The age of the plant doesn't have much to do with it other than less than ideal layout possibilities which means creative solutions are probably required. Having a lower roof than some of the newer plants and more support columns to work around are probably (again, speculating looking at it having never set foot in that plant) the biggest obstacles. Just because the buildings were built in 1921 or whatever doesn't necessarily mean all the equipment inside is that old. MAP was opened in the 60s, the current body shop was built sometime in the 80s I believe, yet everything in here is only about a year old, with more equipment to be installed next year for the Bronco. 

 

Its very unfortunate any of these problems have made it into the hands of the public to the point where the Detroit Free Press is writing about it, and if I were in Jim Hackett's position heads would be rolling right now, because as mentioned elsewhere here this isn't the first time we have seen something like this, in this decade no less.

 

I'd assume there's some calculated threshold the quality issues have to reach before they start outweighing the quicker launch/production schedule timelines.  And it'd appear they've not reached that threshold.

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2 hours ago, twintornados said:

 

Unless you are getting ready to launch Bronco.....

 

One would hope they make better decisions on Bronco and Mach E and other higher profile products.  Based on F150 I'd say that's a good bet.  But you never know....

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2 hours ago, akirby said:

 

One would hope they make better decisions on Bronco and Mach E and other higher profile products.  Based on F150 I'd say that's a good bet.  But you never know....

 

I don't know about that, Explorer is about as high profile as you can get short of F-series. 

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6 hours ago, akirby said:

 

Let me try one more time to explain this.   Retooling is not the root cause of why so many defective products were released to the public.   That's probably a combination of supplier issues on certain parts that either changed or got worse after job 1 and/or (most likelyh) not wanting to delay production long enough to ensure all these problems were worked out before job 1.


But there had to have been issues from the retooling that had to be corrected.   You can't replace every piece of equipment and expect it to work perfectly the first time you turn it on.  The problem is how Ford handled those problems from a timing and resource issue. 

 

So describing why the problems occurred in the first place is different than saying they couldn't have done anything about it.   So yes, Hackett is responsible for the resources and the schedule that lead to the problems after job 1.

 

They ran that plant for 5 weeks before O2B on Explorer was given.  Defective part here and there.. sure... but their are quality issues still happening that shouldn't be.  And final inspection should not be releasing vehicles with fading parts, gaps, scratches etc.

Edited by blwnsmoke
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41 minutes ago, blwnsmoke said:

 

They ram that plant for 5 weeks before O2B on Explorer was given.  Defective part here and there.. sure but their are quality issues still happening that shouldn't be.  And final inspection should not be releasing vehicles with fading parts, gaps, scratches etc.

 

Which either means O2B was given too soon or something changed later.

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12 minutes ago, akirby said:

 

Which either means O2B was given too soon or something changed later.

 

Here is question regarding O2B, Do you they take any of them apart? Example, vehicles are being QC and they look to have no issues. Drive it for a couple days in testing and then tear it down to make sure thing are as expected. Rinse repeat a few times during this cycle.  I am really curious.

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How old are the designers, engineers, assembly men, etc., 19?  Ford and other mfrs. didn't have these problems back in the day!  Why is the parking brake coming on?  Don't tell me a computer runs that too!  Lincoln will never make it as a luxury player with this kind of nonsense!  Sickening!

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We had the same issue in our 2005 Lincoln LS with the electronic parking brake engaging while driving.  Never did get the issue resolved before it was traded off.  Happened on the interstate once.  There were several complaints filed to the NHTSA for this issue, nothing came of it.  

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