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Key Takeaways Ford has hired 350 seasoned engineers, many of them former employees and specialists from suppliers, over the past three years to help with quality control issues.
The company’s efforts are paying off — as of this week, Ford ranks No. 1 among mainstream brands in the latest JD Power Initial Quality Survey, up from 10th place last year.
Ford has embedded these engineers in the company as quality gatekeepers and mentors.
In 2023, Ford spent $4.8 billion fixing customers’ cars, a 15% increase from 2022. Last July, it set a record with 90 recalls in a single year, including an estimated $570 million charge tied to nearly 700,000 crossover vehicles.
Those numbers have triggered a culture change around quality — and the company’s efforts are paying off. As of this week, Ford ranks No. 1 among mainstream brands in the latest JD Power Initial Quality Survey, up from 10th place last year. The survey asks new vehicle owners about problems experienced in the first 90 days of ownership.
Ford CEO Jim Farley recently told Bloomberg TV that the focus on making quality vehicles is showing up in the financials. “We’re seeing our warranty coverages come down. We’re seeing our recall costs come down,” he noted, adding that these improvements are “contributing to literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of a tailwind for Ford on cost.”
Hiring human engineers
Ford made the decision to hire 350 “gray beards,” or experienced engineers, over the past three years to help with its quality control issues. The move is a bet that human experience is the key to making AI pay off, according to a recent Fortune report. Ford is using veteran engineers to mentor younger staff and retrain AI systems that aren’t functioning properly.
“Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as the information you use to train it,” Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, recently told reporters, per Fortune. “Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles.”
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