More than 350. That is how many experienced engineers Ford says it has hired, promoted or brought back after admitting that leaning on artificial intelligence and automation hurt the quality of its vehicles.
Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of hardware engineering, was blunt about it. “We mistakenly believed we could create a high-quality product simply by implementing artificial intelligence,” he said.
The bottom line: software could not stand in for years of hands-on experience. Many of Ford’s veterans left before their knowledge had been fully moved into digital systems. After they were gone, automated processes started making mistakes, and the number of recall campaigns went up.
So the company went looking for the people it had lost. The returning specialists now train younger engineers and work on the data used to teach Ford’s AI algorithms. Ford also formed a separate software quality control team and put in place more than 100,000 automated AI tests, which let it check systems before cars reach the market.
The problems have not vanished. Ford is still dealing with the fallout of earlier failures and remains one of the leaders in U.S. vehicle recalls.
The figure investors will note is the ranking. In the latest J.D. Power Initial Quality Study, Ford placed first among mass-market brands for the initial quality of new vehicles, a clear step up from previous years.
