It’s no secret that Ford has endured its fair share of quality issues – and issued loads of recalls – in recent years, which it has worked to rectify in various ways. Those methods include conducting extensive pre-delivery checks on refreshed and redesigned models before shipping them to dealers, and even incorporating the use of artificial intelligence in the production process to spot problems before they compound. Now, we’re learning about another interesting method being employed by The Blue Oval to improve Ford quality metrics, too.
“In the manufacturing lanes, we’re doing Gemba Walks and going to the plants and spending a lot of time at individual stations, making sure that we’re leveraging the best of our plants across the whole Ford ecosystem in each individual plant,” Andrew Frick, president of Ford Blue and Model e, said at the Deutsche Bank Global Auto Industry Conference. “We’ve seen really good progress there. And we’ve spent a lot of time with our supply chain team and our supplier partners. So much of our progress will be done through the supplier partners.”
For those that aren’t aware of what this method is, “Gemba” is a Japanese term meaning “the real place,” or “the place where value is created.” Gemba walks occur when leaders from companies travel to locations where physical work is performed – in this case, places where parts and vehicles are built – to observe that work, better understand it, and identify potential areas of improvement while interacting with employees, rather than simply relying on second-hand information from others.
Ford Chief Operating Officer Kumar Galhotra recently said that the automaker has made great strides in terms of improving initial quality for 2025 model year vehicles, specifically, and the 2025 J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS) largely backed up those claims, as the automaker secured four category wins. However, it seems as if the 2025 Ford Explorer launch actually hampered those efforts, holding the automaker back from posting even great gains in initial quality.
The side curtain air bags may contact the B-Pillar inner reinforcements and tear during deployment.
Gorgeous backdrop for the Bronco.
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This is encouraging, but please tell me this "interesting method" is not a new technique. Going to the source and understanding the situation as a first step is intern-level problem solving.
There is a reason Ford routinely lands near the bottom of supplier relations surveys, so I hope they are collaborating with team members and suppliers to improve quality rather than issuing memos and penalties.