Ford spent $4.8 billion in 2023 repairing customer vehicles, a 15% jump from the previous year, and followed that with a record 90 recalls last July, including a costly recall tied to nearly 700,000 crossover vehicles. Those numbers pushed the automaker to rethink its approach to quality control, and the strategy appears to be working: Ford now ranks first among mainstream brands in the latest JD Power Initial Quality Survey, a dramatic jump from tenth place a year earlier.
Veteran Engineers Take the Lead
Over the past three years, Ford has brought back roughly 350 experienced engineers, many former employees or supplier specialists, to strengthen its quality processes. These “gray beards” now mentor younger staff and help retrain AI systems that weren’t performing as expected. Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, Charles Poon, noted that the company hadn’t sufficiently valued the insight of its most seasoned engineers in recent years. These veterans now act as internal auditors, leading mandatory weekly design reviews to catch potential failure points early.
AI and Human Expertise Combined
Rather than scaling back automation, Ford is pairing it more closely with human judgment. The company says AI still plays a major role in its quality improvements, but works best alongside deep technical expertise. One notable tool is an AI-powered vision system built from off-the-shelf smartphones, which inspects components like electrical connections on the assembly line. Now deployed across 33 plants with more than 1,000 cameras, the system performs millions of inspections, flagging issues before vehicles move further down the production line. CEO Jim Farley says the shift is already showing up in the numbers, with falling warranty costs and recall expenses.