Why is there never any specific discussion of what the quality problems actually are?
Recalls are so often brought up, but shouldn't there be metrics / data to help pinpoint the cause? Is it a flaw in the engineering, manufacturing, design, or some other process?
The DEI religion says how people look is more important than what they do and the green religion says we must change to EVs because tailpipe emissions are more evil than high risk boxes of toxic chemicals we mortgaged our future to China for. We have been scammed.
A while back during the whole 6 sigma transition / direction, I was mentored by a San Senshuken black belt from the quality supervision department in various root cause analytics and hypothetics as to why customers complain and how we should / would be the first to complain before the customer as this would mean the issue was found first by us. The whole "Find First" philosophy was going to be rolled company wide but ultimately was scuttled by upper management out of fear it would detract employees too much from their daily tasks. Perhaps we should revisit find first as this could help solve the many perceived quality problems? In the end, I never reached black belt status as I ended up going to marketing department and then finance where I retired a couple years back.
Look at the leadership levels. The very same people who oversaw designs that failed in the field and now they are LL6, LL5, Chief Engineers, Directors or VP's >
Bad Q has its roots in the very same people in positions of "'leadership". When a VP asked to not sign off PPAP doc, obviously he is clueless about Ford procedures. NMP are hawks who will make anyone's life miserable if PPAP is not signed on time. Also, asking for test to failure when the very same VP ordered to reduce testing in order to save pennies. Of course, our component testing facilities are a shadow of what they used to be, thx to Cost Reduction ideas that saved nothing but affected our quality for not enough testing to validate a design prior to J1.
Now there is a new Q L2, who was responsible for many failed MCA that affected many Trans, he was clueless then and now he is a LL2 overseeing paperwork. He should know better that paperwork does not improve Q if the design is flawed from the get go w/o enough testing to assess systems interactions
Management that prioritizes the wrong things. It's probably a 10:1 ratio the number of management cost reviews I have done relative to code reviews.
"Leadership follows ego based decisions vs. research/data"
i call this: decisions based on yelling
Six sigma implemented years ago. Engineers gave up their day to day system or component engineer jobs to become certified green belt, then black belt, then master black belt. Master black belts had no career path. Some left for GE or Coca Cola once they figured this out.
Remaining black belts , and master black belts, soon had multiple titles put on them like supervisor, tech spec, or others. Soon they found it required them to wear at least 3 hats.
Six sigma and other quality related fundamentals soon became low priority. Surviving thru the 2008, and subsequent downturns became priority.
So quality and six sigma withered.
Just a year ago they were reviving FTEP. Maybe this is a step back in the right direction.
This black belt left last November.
Lack of centralization. Over siloed features and parts leading to compatibility issues.
Leadership follows ego based decisions vs. research/data
Leadership tends to have good people skills but low real-world experience on how things come together
Leadership is into doing the Hot new thing to show fake metrics.
Too many imported parts with lenient tolerance testing (Just not enough $ to test everything coming in)
Lack of communication and incentives to meet deadlines vs quality.
@ekq+1oFcjxKR nice to hear from the good guys still around. salute!
Maybe they need more committees to figure things out. The Bots keep sending Ford Authority emails, so why not let them have a shot at it ?
At Ford, quality problems are hidden under the rugs. When these problems becomes safety problems then Ford will issues recalls.
I used to work at Ford and I know how leadership runs the business. All talk and no action.
I left Ford to work for another company where I am proud of what the company produce good quality products. I was ashamed to say that I worked for Ford. None of my friends and neighbors owns a Ford vehicle.
Ford quality is in the sh-t hole and it will stay that way.
When you have dummies working on designing your products and workers that don't care about quality you will continue to produce junks and hope that stupid consumers will buy it.
Specifics are never mentioned because doing so would point at upper management decisions, known but buried issues, etc. I read the most accurate post of ford management on this site: "nothing but applause".
For what it's worth - as a former test engineer who started off in BIW.... A lot of the issues that pop up are caught during durability testing. So the testing methods have been developed over the years, the life cycles all cooked down from years and years of making mistakes and correcting the design or in understanding how the loads are in real life vs a simulation. Sounds pretty good, except when you start pioneering and you don't have the benefit of manufacturing that complex computer integrated widget for a decade or longer. So there's that, corrective actions based on failures. Common stuff - you catch it before SOP if you know what you're looking for. But alas, these days all major OEMs are developing complex systems with dozens of failure modes that are new to the business. So stuff sometimes goes undetected in pre launch durability. Some of it is just a nuisance other times a little issue can throw a whole system sideways. This can appear on any new system (drivetrain, climate control, cameras...) as a whole tens of thousands of hours get poured into this process. As humans nobody can anticipate every weird voltage spike or sensor ki-ler. It has always taken time to build experience in ferreting out good test and durability protocols. People aren't any less bright, the tools used are very good. It is what it is. One thin that is avoidable - and I have put my foot down more than once on this - if something isn't ready to be released for production don't be pushed into doing it. Enormous pressure mounts as the plant is idle, suppliers are waiting, workers are not at full rate production - everybody and their uncles want you to hit go because it means a lot. Sometimes you have to say no - it's not ready. So that's my story, Name the issue - it's one of those things. Experience with new technology and or systems takes time to master in mass production. Oh and then there's supplier quality which depends on first article inspection and then statistical sampling. That area can be prone to production pressure too. Little things can cause big problems if you go too fast or are too willing to short cut testing.
unqualified leadership that lacks technical understanding.
It's because many of the parts are outsourced to suppliers. Even one of the workers at MAP during a Global Town Hall said he couldn't understand why Ford outsourced certain parts when they could make them at the plant. As typical, JF wouldn't answer him.