IGI Contributing to Ford's Industry
Leading Quality

April, 2008. Given the perception that automotive build quality is somehow the sole domain of Japanese and European car manufacturers, it may come as a surprise that results from the 2007 J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study showed that Ford earned more quality awards in top model segments than any other car company. Upon release of the study last July, Neal Oddes, Director of Product Research and Analysis for J.D. Power and Associates said, “Fourteen Ford Motor Company models placed in the top three of their respective segments—an achievement unmatched by any other corporation this year—which is a testament to the improvement in quality for Ford Motor Company vehicle models and plants.”

The process responsible for achieving such high levels of product quality, however, is set in motion well before Ford’s new vehicles begin to roll down the assembly line. And while Ford is still among the largest auto makers in the world, a small, but key vendor of theirs, Immersion Graphics of Commerce, Michigan, is providing the company with the unique tools they need to achieve their industry-leading quality levels.

These are tools distinctly different from those used on the assembly line floor. Instead, Immersion Graphics provides large-scale visualization systems that are used by Ford’s Virtual Build Teams to visualize, dissect, and plan every aspect of the vehicle assembly process in minute detail in a 3D, virtual world.

To the uninitiated, what teams of Ford engineers, human factors specialists and assembly planners view on these huge, room-sized screens may appear to be some sort of complicated video game. In fact, Ford utilizes sophisticated 3D computer graphics technology to simulate the entire vehicle assembly process months before parts begin arriving on the assembly line floor.

According to Dr. Richard Zavodsky, Virtual Build Leader who holds a Ph.D. in human organizational systems, literally hundreds, if not thousands of Ford engineers contribute