Increasing the Speed, Quality and Cost-Effectiveness of New Introductions
We are realigning our capabilities to deliver better products faster than ever before.
For example, we recently announced plans to increase the global integration of our regional research and product development organizations. This will allow us to deliver new products faster and more cost effectively. We already successfully share vehicle platforms globally. For example, the new Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX crossover vehicles share a common global platform with the Fusion, Milan and MKZ sedans, as well as the Mazda 6 and Volvo S60. This approach reduces engineering and materials costs, helps us develop new products faster and improves quality. It also allows our designers and developers to concentrate on creating vehicles with distinct personalities, realizing the potential for scale and flexibility while maintaining differentiation. We will build on this kind of global integration by integrating more of our research and new product development activities, as well as cross-car line sharing. In addition, we are working to standardize materials and parts across vehicle lines. This standardization will not only reduce costs, it will increase quality by reducing the number of different parts we test and manufacture. We have developed cross-functional Commodity Business Plan teams, including representatives from product engineering, purchasing and cost optimization, to choose the most effective standardization opportunities.
We are also increasing our use of rapid design and prototyping technologies. For example, we have changed our prototype building and testing process to increase the quality and speed of prototype testing. Now, prototypes are built using the same sequence as the production vehicle to identify and correct possible manufacturing defects before the vehicles reach the production line. In addition, regardless of what component is being tested, all test vehicles are now made to the same stringent specifications of production vehicles so that they are representative of what the customer will experience. The use of more common platforms and vehicle components is also reducing testing time and costs while increasing product quality and safety.
Finally, we are improving our ability to bring new products to market faster by increasing our investment in flexible manufacturing. Flexible manufacturing reduces costs and lets us shift production at an individual plant from model to model to address customer demand quickly. Shared vehicle architecture facilitates flexible manufacturing, and vice versa. The Dearborn Truck Plant at the Ford Rouge Center, for example, will be capable of producing nine vehicle models. In our powertrain facilities, changeover from one product to another typically required a 12–18 month extended shutdown and usually resulted in significant equipment obsolescence. A flexible system changeover, by contrast, often takes place during regularly scheduled plant shutdowns during the summer and at Christmas, with an extended two- to six-week shutdown to implement an entirely new architecture. The investment required to retool these flexible systems for a new architecture is typically about one-fifth the cost of converting traditional systems.
We are also using flexible manufacturing to improve the environmental performance of our manufacturing operations. For example, our new 6-speed automatic rear-wheel-drive transmission (6R) is being produced with cutting-edge technology that yields significant environmental benefits. Minimum Quantity Lubrication (MQL) machining, an industry first in North America for high-volume powertrain production, was implemented at Ford's Livonia Transmission Plant and expanded to the 6F transmission at Van Dyke Transmission Plant as well.
Similarly, we have improved the environmental performance of the heat-treating processes we use for making transmissions and other components. These processes are essential to ensuring that components provide long-lasting, durable performance; however, traditional processes use a lot of energy and produce significant emissions. A new heat-treating process that uses nitrogen gas, called vacuum carburizing, has been implemented at the Sharonville Transmission Plant. It has been shown to significantly reduce energy usage and process emissions, improve the plant floor environment and reduce processing time and operating costs.
By 2008, 82 percent of our North American assembly plants will be capable of flexible manufacturing. By the end of the decade, more than 90 percent of our North American and all of our European plants will be flexible.
