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• Ford has invested heavily in quality control, and it is paying off.
• Additional quality control processes will be installed ahead of production of the next-gen Ranger.
• The Silverton plant will have the capacity to produce 200 000 vehicles on the new line.
• For motoring news, go to Wheels24.
In February this year, Ford Motor Company announced a US$ 1.05 billion investment in the South African operation. This investment will see the annual installed capacity increase from 168 000 to 200 000 vehicles supporting the production of the all-new Ford Ranger bakkie for the South African market and over 100 global markets. The plant will also manufacture Volkswagen bakkies as part of the Ford-VW strategic alliance.
While increased production is necessary, the plant has also implemented several measures to improve the quality of the vehicles they produce sustainably.
"To achieve increased volumes at an improved level of quality, the plant has been changed to produce a single model on a single line. This also helps bring down the cost per unit of manufacture, which is critical in remaining globally competitive," says Kevin Heunis, Quality Director at Ford South Africa.
Upgrades to the plant include a new stamping plant, which will allow for the pressing of body panels and an in-house chassis manufacturing facility. Interestingly, the automation in the body shop is currently at 86%.
"In the past, many of these functions were outsourced, but Ford has elected to bring a variety of these integral functions in house. This allows us to react to any issues or changes as quickly as possible," says Heunis.
Currently, the Ford Silverton plant builds Ranger, Everest and Raptor models with approximately 50% of the components locally sourced. With the next generation of vehicles, they are hoping to increase local content substantially.
Do you think Ford's new efforts will make a difference, and, will it regain confidence and trust in existing and potential new customers? Please email us your thoughts here, or use the comments section below.
The increased localisation will be achieved by bringing a lot of the processes in-house. Thanks to international suppliers who have chosen to establish local operations in the Special Economic Zone alongside the Ford factory.
This will also allow for refining the just-in-time parts supply process, where parts arrive on the line shortly before they are installed on that particular vehicle.
"The benefit of the just-in-time system is that fewer parts need to be stored in the short and medium-term, while damage to parts while in storage has also been a cause of faults in the past," adds Heunis.
Two types of faults
Faults identified as a result of a process within the plant can be defined as issues or concerns where the component does not meet intent due to product development, supplier part or plant-related quality. Most commonly, these include issues such as body, paint, and fit and finish.
Market-related faults focus on concerns where the component or subsystem meets design intent but not market or customer expectations and usually only occurs after a certain period or once the vehicle is used.
"What makes the latter tricky is that vehicles produced at the Silverton plant are shipped to markets across the world. For example, Switzerland applies a lot of salt on their roads, and Saudi Arabia is extremely sandy. Each of these markets is unique in their local conditions, climate and fuel quality, and all these factors need to be considered during the design process. Sometimes aftermarket solutions need to be employed to solve the issues for that specific market and the volume they procure," adds Heunis.
Have these changes made a difference?
Ford tracks their quality across several categories based on faults per 1000 units and has steadily been improving since, with the figure dropping below ten faults per 1000 in February this year. June 2021 was the plants best month to date when they recorded just 4.88 faults per 1000 vehicles produced.
Fixing faults
Mistakes happen, but how a manufacturer deals with those issues can mean the difference between a non-event and a catastrophe.
Recently, Ford has implemented several systems to ensure that they are handled and repaired sufficiently and proficiently when on-the-road faults are identified.
Usually, a customer would take their vehicle to a dealer who would identify the fault as best possible and then submit a warranty claim for the required parts and labour.
These days every warranty claim is checked by a team of engineers at head office before it is approved, allowing Ford to react to all warranty concerns.
If these engineers identify recurring problems, they will institute a recall or Field Service Action depending on the commonality and severity of the issue at hand.
This also allows Ford to be proactive and react to known issues quicker than in the past and institute fixes on all affected vehicles before a failure occurs.
Ford South Africa has also established a vehicle off-road panel that monitors any lengthy repair periods within the dealer network. Since earlier this year, this panel has reduced the average vehicle off-road time from multiple days to less than a day.
The dealership structures have also been altered to motivate the dealer network to limit vehicle off-the-road time and fix it right the first time, as Ford tries to eliminate repeat visits to the dealership for the same issue.
