Ford on Tuesday announced that it will reorganize its Global Operations division to include Information Technology and its order-to-delivery system, in theory helping to speed up the introduction of new technology across the automaker’s industrial system. That, in turn, ought to lead to more streamlined production, expedited vehicle delivery, smaller inventories, and overall improved capital efficiency.
As a result of the reorganization, Ford Chief Information Officer Jeff Lemmer will begin reporting to President of Global Operations Joe Hinrichs, effective August 1st.
“The evolution of computing power and IT have helped bring great products to customers – from cars to tablets,” Ford President and CEO Jim Hackett says. “We can now harness this technology to unlock a new world of vehicle personalization, supply chain choreography and inventory leanness that rivals any industrial model in the world – and Joe’s challenge is to help us redesign this system to do just that – while better serving customers and dealers and improving our overall fitness.”
At the same time, Ford has announced that Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s Executive Vice President of Product Development and Purchasing, will now report directly to Hackett. Thai-Tang is leading the automaker’s push to embrace five flexible vehicle architectures instead of traditional automotive “platforms”, with the aim of cutting product development time by 20 percent and contributing to nearly $7 billion in newly-gained engineering efficiencies.
Ford says that 70 percent of each new vehicle’s engineering will be driven by the new flexible architectures.
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