iamweasel Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 9 hours ago, ice-capades said: Ford has had communication and reputation problems with its Dealers for decades. There are far too many management layers causing decisions made for job and career preservation instead of what's right for the company long-term including its customers and shareholders. On the sales side, the Dealers are the end customer with the Ford Zone Managers primary role being to sell inventory and allocation to Dealers. The order scheduling is not random and relies primarily on dealership management of its USOB (Unscheduled Order Bank). Unfortunately, few dealerships monitor or manage their USOB effectively. Much of this is due to unqualified staff and managers involved and simply telling their retail order customers what they think they want to hear. Many or most Dealers don't realize or fail to utilize the resources available to them regarding retail order management and scheduling. Ford issues almost daily updates regarding commodity restraints and supply chain issues but most Dealers don't review or ignore these resources which can cause the dealership to lose scheduling allocation for both retail customer and stock orders. The priority code and scheduling process works. If Dealer don't know ow to do their job, it's not Ford fault. Dealership incompetence is not an excuse! Yes Ford has had communication problems for decades but it's worse than ever now. They went from caring but just not being very good at it, to not caring at all and ignoring it. Agree on too many layers and short-term thinking being an issue. Part of that is just how things are set up. Ford has always had trouble recruiting top talent due to being in Detroit where nobody wants to live so they have to sell people across the country on how much better for their career Ford would be over other Fortune 500 companies due to how they develop their employees. It's true, and they do a good job getting you ready for upper management, but that tends to have people working there change jobs a ton and that constant churn, and lack of subject matter experts, does not help with overall efficiency. I worked at Ford in Dearborn for 13 years and had 10 different positions (6 promotions) in Manufacturing, Marketing & Sales and Product Development. Just as I got comfortable in a position I got moved to another. I never got bored and I never had too much junk in my offices because I knew I wouldn't be there very long. LOL.... On the order board, pretty sure my counterpart is on top of things but today he was telling us about how he ordered 6 exact spec F-150's for a customer. 4 were ordered initially then 2 were ordered a month later. 2 of the first 4 came in......and then the last 2 arrived before the 2nd pair from the first order. It makes no sense. They claim scheduling is FIFO but that is not really accurate. That's just a small example of how whacky things are. All I know is this guy has his crap together and he does not complain about his DTNA orders like he does with the Ford stuff. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 12 hours ago, iamweasel said: Actually, it is. Ford can easily step-up and put together a system to track where trucks are while in transit. On our DTNA trucks with Detroit engines, I can goto our internal web portal and pull up a step-by-step chart of where the truck is in the process and even click a map and see where the truck is in real time. Ford just hasn't take the steps to provide something like this. (With Cummins we don't get a map but we do see the chart which has some basic info, and if I need more specifics we hit a button and an email gets sent to DTNA AND the transporter and they'll usually respond within an hour or two and tell me exactly where the truck is and what's going on with it. Even this would be a step-up from what Ford does....which is basically nothing.) Of course they could implement a detailed tracking system but you’re talking about 2 million vehicles per year on multiple railroads and who knows how many individual local transport companies so getting everyone to scan the vehicles or putting IOT trackers on them would be difficult and expensive. Do all vehicles come with cell modems now? If so then maybe they could use that for vehicle tracking at very little added cost. But even if they had tracking it’s still the local transport that screwed up not Ford although Ford is obviously ultimately responsible. And it’s still a terrible idea to close a sale before the vehicle is at the dealership. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamweasel Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 1 hour ago, akirby said: Of course they could implement a detailed tracking system but you’re talking about 2 million vehicles per year on multiple railroads and who knows how many individual local transport companies so getting everyone to scan the vehicles or putting IOT trackers on them would be difficult and expensive. Do all vehicles come with cell modems now? If so then maybe they could use that for vehicle tracking at very little added cost. But even if they had tracking it’s still the local transport that screwed up not Ford although Ford is obviously ultimately responsible. And it’s still a terrible idea to close a sale before the vehicle is at the dealership. It's not all on Ford to do themselves. Transporters are for-hire companies and it's a matter of hiring the right one and working together. Back when I was involved with that, there were bar codes on every vehicle and they'd get scanned in every time they moved locations/changed hands. I believe the data is there, but Ford just won't do anything about it even though they've had TONS of complaints from dealers and customers about the inability to get updates on where vehicles are. That's just Ford being cheap or not caring - don't know which is worse. Also, closing a sale before a vehicle hits a dealership is common practice and happens all the time with no issue. We do it all the time in our business, too. Many of our trucks don't even come to our dealerships. (Direct ship to the customer and/or body builder.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanh Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 (edited) 5 hours ago, akirby said: Of course they could implement a detailed tracking system but you’re talking about 2 million vehicles per year on multiple railroads and who knows how many individual local transport companies so getting everyone to scan the vehicles or putting IOT trackers on them would be difficult and expensive. Do all vehicles come with cell modems now? If so then maybe they could use that for vehicle tracking at very little added cost. But even if they had tracking it’s still the local transport that screwed up not Ford although Ford is obviously ultimately responsible. And it’s still a terrible idea to close a sale before the vehicle is at the dealership. yet its easy for them to have vin specific incentives...The Modems are actually linked to Vin Veiw...its actually the reason we knew what was being relayed to us was BS.....you may consider it a bad idea...but tell that to the Consumer hell bent on fianlizing something for his tax man prior to a unit showing up...or hell bent on closing the deal so he doesnt miss out on the car everyone else wants....catch 22... Edited February 16 by Deanh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 33 minutes ago, Deanh said: yet its easy for them to have vin specific incentives...The Modems are actually linked to Vin Veiw...its actually the reason we knew what was being relayed to us was BS.....you may consider it a bad idea...but tell that to the Consumer hell bent on fianlizing something for his tax man prior to a unit showing up...or hell bent on closing the deal so he doesnt miss out on the car everyone else wants....catch 22... I understand the reasons and have considered doing it myself. It’s a great idea until the truck goes missing then you’re in deep shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanh Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 11 minutes ago, akirby said: I understand the reasons and have considered doing it myself. It’s a great idea until the truck goes missing then you’re in deep shit. tell me about it...lol...friggen NIGHTMARE, and sadly the customer was/ is a great guy...my issue was I was relaying EXACTLY verbatum what I was being told ( pRESUMABLY by those with hands on and in the know ) only to find out it was all bull$---t.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpd80 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 What is absolutely hilarious is that Ford markets telematics and tracking systems to its commercial customers while it does a terrible job of organising and tracking orders and supply of its own vehicles. Maybe Ford should get its own house in order first before telling others how to run their business? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 14 minutes ago, jpd80 said: What is absolutely hilarious is that Ford markets telematics and tracking systems to its commercial customers while it does a terrible job of organising and tracking orders and supply of its own vehicles. Maybe Ford should get its own house in order first before telling others how to run their business? Dean just said it’s available in vinview so they are doing it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanh Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 11 minutes ago, akirby said: Dean just said it’s available in vinview so they are doing it. obviously not very well......lol.....nothing I loathe more than getting info then relaying it only to find out its WRONG....ba$tards.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpd80 Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 24 minutes ago, Deanh said: obviously not very well......lol.....nothing I loathe more than getting info then relaying it only to find out its WRONG....ba$tards.... And this is why Ford can’t afford to get rid of dealerships, they need someone in between to act as a filter because their tracking and customer responses are well, sub par to be kind… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ice-capades Posted February 17 Author Share Posted February 17 (edited) 18 hours ago, Deanh said: obviously not very well......lol.....nothing I loathe more than getting info then relaying it only to find out its WRONG....ba$tards.... The VinView system, introduced in October 2022, replaced the Vehicle Visibility system which I used multiple times each day and found it to be a critical and reliable resource. Instead of adding additional resources to Vehicle Visibility, I think that Ford fell back on one of its common cultural faults. Instead of improving and/or enhancing an established resource, someone instead follows the "Ford's got a better idea!" model, comes up with a new version with enough changes so it looks and operates differently, slaps a new name on it but in use it's not as good or worse than the previous platform. There are a lot of communication problems at Ford, with its Dealers and its customers, but I'll state again that the Dealers are responsible too. Ford provides resources such as VINView, with questionable content or reliability according to reports over the past 2 years, that many Dealers don't even bother to use. A critical resource is a dealership's relationship with the various transport companies dispatch departments at the final rail destinations. The ramps have advance information on the vehicles in transit to the ramp (VIN Number, Rail Car, Location, ETA). I always found that having a good relationship with the dispatch department, only contacting them when it was important to get assistance for particular retail vehicles, not pestering them with constant requests, being professional with expedited delivery requests produced a lot of cooperation and results. Almost always (99%) I'd have the information within 5-10 minutes with a reliable delivery ETA which was almost always within 24-48 hours. Sure, the transportation and logistics process has gotten a lot more difficult in recent years due to labor and equipment shortages, but when you need assistance it's often just as important how you ask for the assistance, as it is what you ask and who you ask. Ford_EFC11244_VINView_Vehicle Tracking Platform Replacing Vehicle Visibility_2022-10-17_Page 01.pdf Edited February 17 by ice-capades Additional Content 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbone Posted February 17 Share Posted February 17 On 2/16/2024 at 9:47 AM, akirby said: Of course they could implement a detailed tracking system but you’re talking about 2 million vehicles per year on multiple railroads and who knows how many individual local transport companies so getting everyone to scan the vehicles or putting IOT trackers on them would be difficult and expensive. Do all vehicles come with cell modems now? If so then maybe they could use that for vehicle tracking at very little added cost. But even if they had tracking it’s still the local transport that screwed up not Ford although Ford is obviously ultimately responsible. And it’s still a terrible idea to close a sale before the vehicle is at the dealership. I'm not being contentious, but if Amazon can ship 7,000,000,000+ packages a year across a multitude of shipping methods, and know where they’re at, Ford should be able to figure this out too, with 2 million vehicles. It does feel like a lack of effort on their part to develop an effective system. I have ordered the vast majority of our vehicles, and they’re tracking has always been crap. It sure seems like using the internal modem would be the most effective method of tracking them as previously mentioned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted February 17 Share Posted February 17 3 hours ago, tbone said: I'm not being contentious, but if Amazon can ship 7,000,000,000+ packages a year across a multitude of shipping methods, and know where they’re at, Ford should be able to figure this out too, with 2 million vehicles. It does feel like a lack of effort on their part to develop an effective system. I have ordered the vast majority of our vehicles, and they’re tracking has always been crap. It sure seems like using the internal modem would be the most effective method of tracking them as previously mentioned. Amazon has a dedicated delivery process 100% in house from warehouses to delivery trucks. Thats a lot easier to control. For Ford or GM or Toyota to implement such a system would be enormously expensive. Or just put IOT trackers on each vehicle. It’s not that it can’t be done, it’s just enormously expensive to replace the existing system. And remember in normal times only about 10% of sales were orders. Not sure where we are now but at the peak of the pandemic it was around 50%. When you’re selling from inventory it doesn’t matter nearly as much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvrsvt Posted February 17 Share Posted February 17 7 hours ago, tbone said: I'm not being contentious, but if Amazon can ship 7,000,000,000+ packages a year across a multitude of shipping methods, and know where they’re at, Ford should be able to figure this out too, with 2 million vehicles. It does feel like a lack of effort on their part to develop an effective system. I have ordered the vast majority of our vehicles, and their tracking has always been crap. It sure seems like using the internal modem would be the most effective method of tracking them as previously mentioned. But they lose about an estimated 1.7 million packages a day, through theft or losses. I normally lose about 2-3 packages a year from Amazon that are never delivered for whatever reason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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