Development of our new products starts with identification of advanced technologies and breakthrough ideas by our Research Labs and our Advanced Product Strategy, Advanced Marketing and Advanced Design groups. These groups continuously scan the latest developments in technologies and consumer trends to identify the best new technologies and anticipate the needs and desires of the marketplace. Once a new product is conceived, product development engineers, designers and product marketing teams work together to finalize a vehicle concept. Once approved, our vehicle programs are brought to market using our Global Product Development System, or GPDS.
The GPDS, launched in 2005, merges the best product-creation methods from all of Ford Motor Company's global operations, including Mazda's efficient manufacturing disciplines, Volvo's work with computer-aided design and manufacturing, and a return to in-house engineering of all major vehicle components. The GPDS provides a common set of milestones and metrics for the development of all vehicle programs across our regional business groups, which increases efficiency and quality. As a part of this system, we require all vehicles to meet specific competitive and performance targets at every milestone along the product's development path. These targets address a wide range of environmental performance criteria, such as fuel economy, recycled materials and substances of concern.
In early 2007, we reorganized our product development management systems. Our product development organizations now report to one global leader – the Group Vice President of Global Product Development. Similarly, we are planning to have all of our manufacturing groups report to a single global leader in the near future. These and associated management changes allow us to be more globally integrated across our regional business organizations so we can develop better products, more efficiently, at a lower cost. We also strengthened our sustainable mobility governance to provide more integrated development and implementation of sustainability initiatives. Please see our Climate Change section for more information on these changes.
In addition to these structural changes, we updated the GPDS this year by improving our tracking and reporting system for metrics related to recycled content and substances of environmental concern. A discussion of our part materials labeling and materials management can be found in the Environment section of this report.
