Ford: AI alone couldn't fix quality, so it rehired veteran engineers

Ford credits a recent quality turnaround to pairing artificial intelligence with experienced engineers. The company said it hired, promoted, or brought back about 350 seasoned technical specialists who mentor younger staff, lead design reviews, and help improve AI and automated quality tools used to catch defects before vehicles reach customers.

“Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it’s only as good as information you use to train it,” Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, said, adding that the company had mistakenly believed AI plus existing design requirements would produce a high-quality product.

Poon said Ford had not done enough to preserve the knowledge of longtime engineers and that many quality problems appeared at the boundaries between design, manufacturing, software, and hardware teams. JD Power named Ford the top mass-market brand in its latest initial-quality study, trailing only Porsche and Genesis and narrowly beating Lexus.

ford, artificial intelligence, veteran engineers, quality turnaround, automated tools, design reviews, initial quality, jd power, vehicle defects, charles poon