Ford to reduce number of North American vehicle platforms; cost-cutting, market speed efforts cited
Ford Motor Co. plans to trim the number of North American vehicle platforms from 16 to 12 in the next seven years. The reduction is part of sweeping changes to the automaker's product development organization that aim to cut costs and speed products to market.
The company also plans to cut powertrain combinations by an undetermined amount and shrink product development times about 25 percent, says Phil Martens, Ford vice president of vehicle product development and engineering. He has a new title under the Ford reorganization.
New vehicles take 18 months to 27 months from design freeze to introduction, Martens says. "We have to get down to the neighborhood of 14 to 22 months."
Product plans are fairly set into 2006, so vehicles developed under those faster times should start to appear in mid-2006 or later, he says.
Martens, 42, joined Ford more than 15 years ago as an engineer and rose steadily through the ranks of product development and engineering in the United States and Europe. He joined Ford's Japanese affiliate, Mazda Motor Corp., in 1999 and led its product planning efforts before returning to Ford in North America in 2002.
Fewer platforms cut costs because the company achieves greater economies of scale on high-volume platforms. But it also means Ford must develop so-called flexible platforms that can carry various models, such as sedans, coupes, wagons and others.
With that flexibility and by working with suppliers to share more components, Ford can reduce North American product development costs 10 percent annually, Martens thinks. He didn't provide figures for current spending and expected savings, but he did say that Mazda reached annual cost reductions of more than 20 percent through similar means.
The new approach in North America in part is modeled after Mazda's efforts. Ford North America is behind both Mazda and Ford of Europe in product development speed and use of more flexible platforms with common components, Martens says.
Ford will move to four platform groups to develop sets of similar vehicles, rather than the five brand-oriented groups used previously. The previous group themes were Tough Trucks; Outfitters; Family; Lifestyle and Youth; and Lincoln Mercury.
The changes, made Wednesday, Feb. 19, cap a year of adjustments to Ford's North American product development organization. No job cuts are planned, though the changes do mean new positions for some of Ford's 14,000 North American product development employees.
Says Martens: "The aim here is quite simple: it's to increase our productivity, and the goal is to get products sooner."