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Farley: Fixing quality is my No. 1 priority


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From the Autoblog article.

Quote

"Fixing quality is my No. 1 priority ... It is the most important initiative in the whole company. And it’s going to take several years."

Quality at Ford Motor Company will never be fixed without a completely different corporate culture, one that doesn't tolerate sub-standard targets with mistakes as an in-built expectation, and one that doesn't tolerate making the same mistakes over and over.

 

Farley definitely has his work cut out for him.

Edited by rperez817
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49 minutes ago, ANTAUS said:

Refresh my memory, I believe around 03-06 Ford had some Six Sigma Program, where soon after quality and reliability was realized for new vehicles soon after..?

 

Ford's quality initiatives including Six Sigma go back well beyond that. It introduced 8D methodology and APQP in the 1980s. But realizing quality and reliability for new vehicles consistently and broadly has proved elusive for Ford to this day, though for a few years in the late 2000s Ford did reasonably well in vehicle quality and reliability studies like Consumer Reports and J.D. Power IQS & VDS.

 

As I mentioned in the "Ford Quality Czar Says Issues Should Subside in 2023" thread, this is because quality initiatives at Ford have always been like newfangled diets.  At no point has quality been "the fabric of the organization" rather than just "part of the fabric" as quality guru Philip Crosby put it.

 

The issues that fuzzymoomoo mentioned earlier in this thread are indicative of this.

Edited by rperez817
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6 hours ago, ANTAUS said:

Refresh my memory, I believe around 03-06 Ford had some Six Sigma Program, where soon after quality and reliability was realized for new vehicles soon after..?

6 sigma is a bastardized version of quality.  The standard SPC chart is all that is needed and also all that will work.  Demming had the answer 40 years ago and he is still correct.  

https://deming.org/explore/fourteen-points/

variation is the problem

variation must be measured. understood and removed

accurate and precise measurement system are the foundation

and yes, Farley is correct, it will take years and 

when quality is achieved is a place we will never arrive so we should enjoy the journey as the destination will never be reached

 

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Hmmm, let's see. Ford has been around since 1903. By now, quality should not even be an issue. It should have been achieved by now!!!!!!!!!!!!  Do away with foreign made components!  They don't care about Ford quality! Go back to the River Rouge days. Bring it in the back door, and send the finished product out the front. All rubber, all plastic, all steel, all aluminum!  Back in the day, the only issues Ford, GM and Chrysler had were starters and GM had timing chain issues.  That was it!

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1 hour ago, Joe771476 said:

Hmmm, let's see. Ford has been around since 1903. By now, quality should not even be an issue. It should have been achieved by now!!!!!!!!!!!!  Do away with foreign made components!  They don't care about Ford quality! Go back to the River Rouge days. Bring it in the back door, and send the finished product out the front. All rubber, all plastic, all steel, all aluminum!  Back in the day, the only issues Ford, GM and Chrysler had were starters and GM had timing chain issues.  That was it!

Cars are more reliable than ever before. Wasn't alive in the 70s and 80s. But everyone who was tells me American cars were a joke during that period. My parents had a gen 1 tarus, and a fiesta, both junk. The gen 1 tarus had transmission issues a few months after they bought it. Their fiesta kept overheating, and actually caught on fire once. Was one of those issues mechanics could never resolve. By comparison, their 2017 explorer is almost 7 years old, and has never had a part break. The hybrid in our Maverick is virtually identical to the 2.5 hybrid system ford's used for like 15 years, and is regarded as being extremely reliable, often lasting 500k without powertrain issues. Sorry, but I don't buy the "They don't make them like they used to argument" that pretends like cars from the 60s-80s were more reliable than cars now, they weren't. Every piece of evidence we have contradicts that narrative, esp statistical averages showing the average lifespan of cars on the roads. 

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4 hours ago, Joe771476 said:

Hmmm, let's see. Ford has been around since 1903. By now, quality should not even be an issue. It should have been achieved by now!!!!!!!!!!!!  Do away with foreign made components!  They don't care about Ford quality! Go back to the River Rouge days. Bring it in the back door, and send the finished product out the front. All rubber, all plastic, all steel, all aluminum!  Back in the day, the only issues Ford, GM and Chrysler had were starters and GM had timing chain issues.  That was it!

quality was achieved with the 1st Taurus but then money became the MOST important measure.  GREED is the internal enemy and until HE is defeated there will be no long-term quality.

Edited by tarheels23
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Farley can say what he wants, but he's too far removed from the details to really have an impact.  You need strong middle/senior management and the PD Chief is the most important position in the company IMO.  Ford had a great one in Derrick Kuzak and things have not been the same since he left.  They need to find another guy like him, as right now they have to many guys who have short-term goals to help their own careers, as opposed to taking the long view and doing things right.  (Which is a common problem in publicly traded companies.)

 

Also, Fuzzy, please stop with the over-played "stop letting the bean counters handicap program managers from the get go" theory.  This is so far from the truth.    The finance guys simply "report" the financial status of each part/vehicle, and it's up to the Chief Engineer and Program Manager, both of whom typically come from Engineering, to decide what cuts to make and/or what parts to add cost from year to year.   

 

Here is how it works:

1)  The strategy office, a handful of cross-functional upper management members, develops the cycle plan which is the year-by-year plan of what vehicles get introduced, which ones get major/minor freshenings, etc. (Usually a 5-8 year rolling plan.)  This includes up-front investment and variable per unit costs by vehicle.

2)   The strategy office presents the cycle plan to top management (Farley, etc) and the Board of Directors.  Once a specific program is given the green light and approved in the corporate budget, then work starts to begin and a leadership team is appointed.  (Program Manager, Chief Engineer, Finance Manager, Marketing Manager, Purchasing Manager, etc.)  

3)  The initial variable cost and investment budget is given to the vehicle's leadership team and from there, the Chief Engineer/Program Manager decide how to spend the money they are given, both on the overall initial up-front investment and the variable cost per vehicle. 

 

All the "bean counters" do, is literally count the beans and handle 2 main tasks:

1)  They are the lead on the presentations used at all the various checkpoints when reviewing with upper management  (these can be massive and very detailed)

2)  They review, daily and hourly at times, the latest cost estimates for the new program and how it compares with the budget we've been assigned

 

If a vehicle is over budget, the Chief Engineer/Program Manager decide where to cut cost, not the bean counters.

 

 

Edited by iamweasel
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Here's my take away.  The only way to get a good change in the quality of the product coming out of Ford to increase in reliability is for it to start with the CEO.  If he isn't publicly banging on the drum, it isn't likely to change dramatically.  No Farley isn't going to do it himself.  He'll need his middle managers and production chiefs to do the work.  But Farley has made his way up the chain of command.  He has a fair idea of how to get it done.  He'll put the people in charge on notice and start working on this.

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1 hour ago, 92merc said:

Here's my take away.  The only way to get a good change in the quality of the product coming out of Ford to increase in reliability is for it to start with the CEO.  If he isn't publicly banging on the drum, it isn't likely to change dramatically.  No Farley isn't going to do it himself.  He'll need his middle managers and production chiefs to do the work.  But Farley has made his way up the chain of command.  He has a fair idea of how to get it done.  He'll put the people in charge on notice and start working on this.


It does have to start with him but just saying things won’t work.  He has to start holding people accountable for bad quality starting with how they treat their vendors and how they manage schedules.  Quality has to count more than cost or schedule (within reason).   Reward for quality performance and decisions and punish for putting personal or group gain ahead of quality.

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28 minutes ago, akirby said:


It does have to start with him but just saying things won’t work.  He has to start holding people accountable for bad quality starting with how they treat their vendors and how they manage schedules.  Quality has to count more than cost or schedule (within reason).   Reward for quality performance and decisions and punish for putting personal or group gain ahead of quality.

 

Right....

 

Problem is, does Farley even know how to do this?  He's never really worked in manufacturing or product development before and that's part of the issue.   He's always been a sales & marketing guy.

 

He's the guy who was a longtime NFL offensive coordinator in football, then gets hired to a new team as the head coach, and over the first few years they score a lot of points but their defense sucks and never gets better.  He doesn't know how to fix the defense himself and has to rely on having a good defensive coordinator to run that side of things.  

 

So when it comes to that, Farley is still searching for the right "defensive coordinator" to handle this issue at Ford.  With a bad quality chief and a CEO who knows nothing about it himself, that is the blind leading the blind.  It has been hard for Farley to manage this because he doesn't know what to do, and many of the past execs in PD/Quality would feed him stories about why the #'s are bad, what they are doing it fix it, etc, but Farely had no way to separate truth from BS due to his lack of expertise in that area.  

 

From the folks I know inside the company that work in PD/manufacturing, things went off the rails once Raj Nair had to be let go.  Farley did make changes there in September (Doug Field/Jim Baumbick) and it's too soon to tell how those guys do, but early chatter I've heard suggests these guys are a little better than what they were dealing with before.  (Still not a Derrick Kuzak type of situation which was ideal, but it'll be hard to find another guy like that.)

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2 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


it’s not just on the engineering end….

 

Ultimately, engineering **is** who makes the final decision, specifically the Chielf Engineer/Program Manager, but they are typically smart enough to use a team approach/consult with all impacted parties before they cut things, but at the end of the day they make the call. 

 

If they try to cut something that the marketing folks insist they must have, then those marketing folks "appeal" the ruling up the chain on their side and then the "supreme court" (ie, the PD chief) will handle the appeal.  

 

But nowhere along the way do finance people assigned to product programs start making decisions on what to cut on a given car or truck.  That was my point.  

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4 hours ago, iamweasel said:

 

Ultimately, engineering **is** who makes the final decision, specifically the Chielf Engineer/Program Manager, but they are typically smart enough to use a team approach/consult with all impacted parties before they cut things, but at the end of the day they make the call. 

 

If they try to cut something that the marketing folks insist they must have, then those marketing folks "appeal" the ruling up the chain on their side and then the "supreme court" (ie, the PD chief) will handle the appeal.  

 

But nowhere along the way do finance people assigned to product programs start making decisions on what to cut on a given car or truck.  That was my point.  


Financial people don’t put the squeeze on manufacturing to cut jobs, thereby making our jobs harder and lowering quality? I find that very hard to believe. 

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2 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


Financial people don’t put the squeeze on manufacturing to cut jobs, thereby making our jobs harder and lowering quality? I find that very hard to believe. 

 

I was specifically referring to the parts on a vehicle, which in the end is what really makes the most impact on long term vehicle quality.  I don't know enough about the process to determine plant headcounts / line setups / ergonomics, etc, to comment on that part of things.  

 

That being said, final vehicle assembly is so good these days, with all OEM's, that "mistakes" when it comes to what happens at the plant rarely impact long-term vehicle quality.   (And yes, I have worked in a final assembly plant - proud alum of Michigan Truck Plant, now known as Michigan Assembly I believe.) 

 

My first job at the plant was to review every single warranty claim on a vehicle that was filed before the truck turned 90-days old.  We called them 3MIS meetings.  (3 months in service.)  At the time, most of the claims within the first 90-days were thought to be assembly issues, and anything after that was thought to be a parts design/supplier issue.  On the claims under 90-days, we shared our findings with the engineering team in Product Development on anything that we believed to be a parts design/supplier issue.  On the other hand, anything over 90 days that was thought to be an assembly issue was sent to us for review.  (So we could change things on our end if needed.)  Generally speaking, what we found was:

  • Roughly half of the claims within 90 days were due to something that happened at the plant, and half were due to a parts design/supplier issue.  (Usually stuff like wires not hooked up correctly, loose parts due to broken fasteners/clips due to improper installation, water leaks due to improper robot sealing, etc.)
  • As far as the claims sent to us that were on vehicles over 90-days old, most of it was the same nickel & dime things I mentioned above.  In many cases, we'd call the customer to ask questions and we'd find out the problem was there from the beginning, they just didn't bother taking the vehicle in for service until after the 90-day mark.  We never found a major issue with these claims that would be something that would make the vehicle blow up in 3-4 years or anything like that.  Usually those types of catastrophic failures were due to a parts design/supplier issue.
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7 hours ago, iamweasel said:

 

Ultimately, engineering **is** who makes the final decision, specifically the Chielf Engineer/Program Manager, but they are typically smart enough to use a team approach/consult with all impacted parties before they cut things, but at the end of the day they make the call. 

 

If they try to cut something that the marketing folks insist they must have, then those marketing folks "appeal" the ruling up the chain on their side and then the "supreme court" (ie, the PD chief) will handle the appeal.  

 

But nowhere along the way do finance people assigned to product programs start making decisions on what to cut on a given car or truck.  That was my point.  


I get exactly what you’re saying but I think the point is too many decisions are made to save money short term that end up costing far more in warranty claims and customer dissatisfaction.  Regardless of who made the decision.

 

The focus DSG is the poster child.  They knew it was bad before launch then refused to replace it.

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45 minutes ago, akirby said:


I get exactly what you’re saying but I think the point is too many decisions are made to save money short term that end up costing far more in warranty claims and customer dissatisfaction.  Regardless of who made the decision.

 

The focus DSG is the poster child.  They knew it was bad before launch then refused to replace it.

 

Certainly there is some of that, yeah, and I get that, but that Focus trans issue was the exception, not the norm.

 

That dual-clutch tranny was done because they had to shave MPG's to save CAFE penalties, and would not have been such a bad idea if they actually used a decent design.  (More like the other dual clutch autos out there.)    So they screwed up the design and then took the stupid-factor another step by forcing it through knowing of the potential issues.  Just dumb....

 

But aside from that I don't know of that many decisions made for short term gain if they **knowingly** think it will negatively impact product quality.  I do think too many people get "sold" on certain things by suppliers or engineers claiming they can do something, and then in reality it doesn't work as intended.  They need a little more discipline/structure to really "trust but verify" certain things before mass production starts.    Ford has always made too many post-deadline or running changes which led to a chaotic environment during the product development process that I believe impacted vehicle quality.

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11 hours ago, iamweasel said:

 

Certainly there is some of that, yeah, and I get that, but that Focus trans issue was the exception, not the norm.

 

That dual-clutch tranny was done because they had to shave MPG's to save CAFE penalties, and would not have been such a bad idea if they actually used a decent design.  (More like the other dual clutch autos out there.)    So they screwed up the design and then took the stupid-factor another step by forcing it through knowing of the potential issues.  Just dumb....

 

But aside from that I don't know of that many decisions made for short term gain if they **knowingly** think it will negatively impact product quality.  I do think too many people get "sold" on certain things by suppliers or engineers claiming they can do something, and then in reality it doesn't work as intended.  They need a little more discipline/structure to really "trust but verify" certain things before mass production starts.    Ford has always made too many post-deadline or running changes which led to a chaotic environment during the product development process that I believe impacted vehicle quality.


But Cafe penalties still comes back to a cost decision and going forward without disclosing the known problems is exactly the kind of behavior that Farley needs to change,

 

Sometimes the bean counting impacts schedules.  They tried to do the Explorer changeover too fast.  Why?  Because they didn’t want to lose sales and that comes down to cost.  Had they taken an extra 60 days the launch would have been much smoother.  Same happened with the 2013 Fusion/MKZ launch.  You have to be willing to lose some sales to get a quality product sometimes.  I bet the Explorer warranty claims cost far more than 2 months profit.

 

Bronco hardtop was another example of trusting a supplier and hoping for a best case scenario that backfired.  They only tested the prototype builds not the high volume factory builds.  They should have delayed until the high volume builds could be tested.  Yes it would have pissed off customers and cost some sales but again in the overall scheme would have been a better outcome.

 

Again not rocket science if you simply make quality more important than meeting a deadline or a cost target and hold people accountable financially.  And fire anyone who acts in their own best interest and not Ford’s.

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