Ford Motor Company's Vision For Next 100 Years

Jul. 01, 2003 By ORC Newswire

Email
Print
Discuss

Ford Motor Company's Vision For Next 100 Years: Great Products, Strong Business, Better World

F-150 redefines "Built Ford Tough" by offering the industry's broadest variety of body and trim configurations.

Ford Motor Company's 100th anniversary marks a major milestone for a company that started with humble beginnings in a converted Detroit wagon shop to become the second-largest automaker in the world. Ford literally put the world on wheels by mass-producing simple, reliable vehicles that an average family could afford.

"In terms of economic and social influence, I don't think there's a company that had a greater impact on the lives of people around the world in the 20th century than Ford," says Company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Ford. "If you look at our 100-year history, it is clear that our success always has been driven by our products and our people. Great products made us what we are, and they will take us where we're going in the future."

As the company looks toward its next century, those same values are driving the next chapter in Ford history.

"Our goal is to build on our traditional strengths and redefine them for the 21st century. We're going to apply fresh thinking and innovative technology to everything we do, from our basic business processes to the products that define who we are as a company," Ford says. "Our vision moving forward is to build great products, a strong business and a better world."

Great Products:
65 in 5 Years

Ford's product vision begins in North America with the biggest wave of new product introductions in its history. The company plans to introduce 65 new Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products during the next five years. The first of those new products is the all-new 2004 Ford F-150 pickup, which debuts this fall.

The F-Series is the most successful vehicle in the history of automobiles. Since the truck's debut in 1948, more than 27.5 million have been sold. It has also been the best-selling truck in America for 26 years and the best-selling vehicle for 21 straight years.

Building on that foundation, the 2004 F-150 redefines "Built Ford Tough" by offering the industry's broadest variety of body and trim configurations, more power and payload, more cargo volume and more capability all around. That toughness is combined with new convenience features, such as four doors on every vehicle, more interior space - six more inches in the Regular and SuperCab - as well as a bold exterior design and a knockout interior.

While the impact of the new F-150 cannot be overstated, it's not the only news for the 2004 model year. Two new minivans, the Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey, also join the lineup in the fall.

The Freestar is designed to be the most flexible, most powerful and highest-quality minivan Ford ever has built. Freestar offers more safety features than any of its competition, including available rollover side curtain air bags in all three rows of seats. In addition, the vehicle's interior is all-new and more functional than ever.

The Monterey is the first of four new Mercurys debuting during the next three years. The upscale minivan caters to the luxury end of the minivan market. All Montereys come well equipped and offer unique features, such as heated and cooled seats and front and rear sonar parking assist. Monterey is expected to bring new customers into the Mercury showroom, from families to empty nesters.

New for 2004

The first three Ford GTs take to the streets, with full-scale production beginning in 2004. The Ford GT is Ford's first all-aluminum space frame vehicle and serves as a test bed for introducing new processes and lightweight materials in other products. The supercar was developed in fewer than 15 months to celebrate Ford's 100th anniversary.
Ford Motor Company and Harley-Davidson both celebrate centennials this year - and have teamed up again for the newest iteration of the world's best-selling truck and renowned brand of motorcycles. For 2004, Ford offers the Ford Harley-Davidson^™ F-Series Super Duty with 4x4 capability and an optional 6.0-liter Power Stroke® diesel engine. The vehicle this year is available in three exterior designs, including Black and Competition Orange Two-Tone, Black and Dark Shadow Gray Two-Tone and Black Monotone. The truck features 18-inch wheels, along with Harley-Davidson trim and chrome accents.
Another icon, the Ford Mustang, celebrates a milestone April 17, 2004. To mark the occasion, Ford is offering the Mustang 40th Anniversary Edition, a limited production featuring interior and exterior upgrades in V-6 and GT models.
The entire Lincoln lineup - including the Town Car, LS, Navigator and Aviator - receives an optional DVD-based navigation system for 2004.
A new LS sport appearance package, called the LSE, adds aggressive looks with a new air dam, grille, ground effects and unique six-spoke 17-inch chrome wheels. LS also offers Sirius Satellite Radio for the first time.
A new 2.3-liter engine is available in the 2004 Ford Focus.
Quad captain's chairs are available on the Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer.
Passenger weight-sensing technology - an addition to Ford's Personal Safety System^™ - is expanded to the new Ford F-150, Taurus, Freestar and Mercury Monterey.

Strong Business:
Re-inventing Design, Engineering and Manufacturing

To bring the "65 in 5" new vehicles to life, Ford also is re-inventing the way it designs, engineers and manufacturers its cars and trucks.

Ford's newly strengthened Advanced Product Creation group is creating the future of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products and developing the "next big thing." The work includes bringing technology, marketing and trends in line with the company's upcoming product plans.

In addition, Ford has launched its new Product Creation process with more vehicle platform flexibility, as well as increased commonality and standardization of components and processes. By moving to more flexible, common platforms, Ford can introduce new, derivative products at lower cost in the future - including several all-new Ford, Lincoln and Mercury products not yet announced.

In total, the changes will help Ford achieve a 10 percent annual product development productivity improvement, a 25 percent reduction in the number of platforms in North America by 2010 and a 25 percent reduction in product development time.

The changes also support Ford's unrelenting commitment to "Quality is Job One." In the J.D. Power and Associates 2003 Initial Quality Study, Ford Motor Company was the most improved domestic automaker for the second consecutive year. Ford improved its quality position by 5 percent on the heels of a record 12 percent improvement in 2002. Likewise, Ford showed improvement in J.D. Power's Sales Satisfaction Index, Customer Service Index and received more segment awards than any other manufacturer in the APEAL survey, which measures "things gone right."

In parallel, the huge wave of new products gives Ford an opportunity to improve its manufacturing operations. The company is taking advantage of the massive changeover needed for the new products and bringing its manufacturing systems up to new levels of quality, flexibility, leanness and sustainability.

The 2004 F-150 is being built in Ford's Norfolk, Va., and Kansas City, Mo., assembly plants - the first two of the company's plants to install a next-generation flexible system. The system allows Ford to build several different models off a variety of platforms, and change the mix, volume and options of products produced at the plants in response to consumer demand and market segmentation - all with minimal investment and changeover loss.

By mid-decade in North America, half of Ford's body shops, trim and final assembly operations will be flexible. That number rises to 75 percent by the end of the decade.

Better World: Social Responsibility in Ford's Plants and Products

In addition to being lean and flexible, Ford's manufacturing operations, as well as its products and services, are part of the company's commitment to making the world a better place - through corporate citizenship, social responsibility and sustainability of its products and operations.

Among the most dramatic undertakings is the redevelopment of the Ford Rouge Center in Dearborn, Mich. When the new facility begins operations in 2004 - as one of three plants building the 2004 Ford F-150 - it will signal an expansion of the company's manufacturing vision and the first major step toward making the legendary Ford Rouge Center an industrial icon of 21st century lean, flexible and sustainable manufacturing.

The sustainability comes from ecologically advanced methods for storm water management, energy usage, air quality and soil restoration. These methods will help improve the environment and save the company money.

Ford worked with internationally renowned environmental architect William McDonough on many of the environmental innovations and test beds at the site.

Advanced environmental initiatives being developed at the Rouge Center include:

The world's largest living roof composed of a perennial ground cover called sedum that reduces storm water runoff and helps insulate the building.
A biological process called phytoremediation that uses specific plants to break down and remove polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a byproduct of years of steel manufacturing at the site.
Special ditches lined with grasses and other plants called swales mimic the cleaning action of natural wetlands.
The nation's largest porous parking lot on 16 acres at the plant's vehicle shipping yard helps control storm water runoff.
Ten huge window boxes called roof monitors and 36 skylights will bring daylight into the Dearborn Truck Plant's final assembly area, creating a more pleasant work environment and reducing lighting costs.

But at Ford, making facilities environmentally sustainable is not enough. The company says that, ultimately, customers judge automakers' social responsibility by the vehicles they produce. Ford also intends to lead in this area as part of its "better world" vision.

Later this year, Ford begins production of the Ford Escape Hybrid, which combines a gasoline engine with an electric drivetrain as a promising near-term solution to greatly reduced emissions and improved fuel economy. Low-volume fleet production starts at year-end, and retail production begins in mid-2004.

As the first true no-compromise hybrid SUV, the Escape Hybrid combines the cargo capacity and go-anywhere capability of the Ford Escape with the fuel economy and emissions benefits of a "full" hybrid system. Its 300-volt nickel-metal-hydride battery allows the vehicle to run on either the gasoline engine or battery power alone and achieve 35 to 40 miles per gallon fuel economy in the city driving cycle, as well as extraordinarily low SULEV and PZEV emissions standards.

Ford has also announced that its future midsize sedan, the Futura, will be the company's next hybrid vehicle. Like the Escape Hybrid, the Futura Hybrid combines a 2.3-liter I-4 gasoline engine with a 65-kW electric motor. The Futura Hybrid will be introduced after the 4- and 6-cylinder Futura models enter production in 2005.

This year, the Ford Focus continues to be offered as a PZEV - meeting California's stringent partial zero emissions standard without compromising the vehicle's performance, fun-to-drive character or economy. The Focus PZEV, powered by a new 2.3-liter I-4 engine, is the standard engine for all California, New York, Vermont and Massachusetts Focus models. The engine is available for the 2004 model year on all non-SVT Ford Focus models in the United States.

In addition to these production vehicles, Ford continues to pioneer new technologies with several advanced research efforts, including:

Diesel-powered light-duty vehicles are being developed and tested, as Ford studies plans to offer a diesel-powered Ford Focus for sale in North America in the future. Diesel technology offers advantages in fuel efficiency in the range of 25 percent to 30 percent over a gasoline vehicle. This fuel economy improvement translates into a 20 percent to 25 percent reduction in CO2 emissions.
The Ford Focus Fuel Cell Vehicle is undergoing fleet testing in the United States and Canada. The hydrogen-powered fleet is part of a three-year program designed to test fuel cell vehicles in real-world applications. The goals of the program include technology testing, driver acceptance evaluation, evaluating comfort with hydrogen fueling and educating the public on the benefits of and challenges posed by the introduction of fuel cell vehicles. The Ford Focus FCV produces zero emissions, and fuel-cell technology is projected to provide up to two times the fuel economy of gasoline and diesel engines.
The Ford Model U concept has the world's first supercharged internal combustion engine (ICE) optimized to run on hydrogen fuel. The research project is viewed as a stepping stone to hydrogen-fueled mass transportation that eventually will incorporate fuel cells. Much like a diesel engine, the hydrogen ICE can reach an efficiency that is approximately 25 percent better than a gasoline engine.

In the same way that Ford Motor Company considers its environmental impact from a broad "life-cycle" perspective, the company's approach to safety is designed to be well-rounded. The company's safety leadership includes innovations in energy-managing crash structures, restraint systems and accident-avoidance technologies, including:

For 2004, Ford introduces major safety innovations in offset crash performance on the new F-150, Freestar and Mercury Monterey. Based on internal tests, Ford expects these three vehicles to perform very well in offset crashes - and meet new federal requirements for offset crashes that are gradually being phased in. For the 2004 model year, 38 percent of Ford vehicles will meet the standard - nearly double the 20 percent government requirement.
The 2004 F-150, Freestar, Taurus, Crown Victoria, Mercury Monterey, Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car now feature Occupant Classification Sensing as part of Ford's Personal Safety System™. If the passenger-seat sensor detects no weight on the seat - or very little weight, such as a newspaper or a half-dozen bagels - the passenger air bag is automatically switched off.
Ford's rollover protection curtain air bag system - which was the industry's first - now is available on the Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey minivans, as well as most of the company's SUVs. Ford's Safety Canopy™ provides enhanced side impact and rollover protection by deploying from the headliner in certain types of accidents. On SUVs equipped with the system, approximately 65 percent of the window surface area in the first two rows is covered. The new Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey offer the system for all three rows.
S²RV concept vehicle - for Safety Scientific Research Vehicle - demonstrates several future infotronics systems that promote driving safety. For example, the vehicle is fitted with TrafficView^™, a Ford-patented technology that uses forward-facing cameras mounted in the side mirror housings to provide a better view around traffic immediately ahead via an instrument panel display.