Ford’s limited-edition Super Duty Proud to Honor package combines patriotic styling, with a portion of the proceeds supporting Blue Star Families. (Credit: Ford Motor Company)
Ford also hired experienced human engineers to help address shortcomings of artificial intelligence (AI) tools that were meant to address quality issues in the automaker’s manufacturing processes.
The point of hiring helped Ford lift the JD Power 2026 US Initial Quality Study (IQS) for the first time since 2010 amid quality improvements for its new vehicles, and follows other hard-learned studies about AI’s ability to replace human knowledge in manufacturing processes.
“Artificial intelligence is a great tool, but it’s only as good as the data you use to train it,” said Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of automotive mechanical engineering, speaking to the media on Wednesday, according to a Bloomberg report.
“Over the years, we haven’t paid as much attention as we should to the knowledge of our most experienced engineers who have been with us through many product cycles,” he said.
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Ford also hired veteran engineers to help guide AI systems that weren’t enough to improve manufacturing quality on their own. (Jim Young/AFP via Getty Images)
“Incorrectly, we thought that just by introducing artificial intelligence and eating the design needs we had, that would produce a high-quality product,” said Poon.
He also noted that AI tools lacked the training and expertise that veteran technicians have, and many of the company’s experts left Ford before their experience could be used to improve the performance of AI tools.
“We realized that in order to develop some of our machine learning and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools, we needed to make sure they were trained by people with a lot of experience,” Poon said.
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| A ticker | Security | Finally | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F | This company FORD MOTOR CO. | 14.13 | +0.02 |
+0.14% |
The Detroit giant said it has hired about 300 engineers to work in its automotive engineering division over the past few years.
“Freed from day-to-day production processes, these engineers now serve as internal auditors, conducting mandatory weekly design reviews to hunt down and eliminate potential points of failure before blueprints reach the factory floor,” Ford said in a statement.
Ford Chief Operating Officer Kumar Galhotra said experienced engineers and technicians were “at the heart” of the company’s efforts to improve manufacturing quality by addressing process problems before they were incorporated into the workflow.
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Ford CEO Jim Farley said quality improvement is helping Ford’s bottom line. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
Ford CEO Jim Farley told Bloomberg TV that the change helps improve the company’s financial performance, by spending money on warranty coverage and recalls, which in turn boosts the automaker by cutting costs.
JD Power’s 2026 IQS not only placed Ford at the top of the list for the first time in 16 years, but also placed the Ford F-150, Ford Mustang and Ford Super Duty at the top of their respective categories for the second year in a row.
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Additionally, the Ford Escape, Ford Explorer, Ford Expedition and Ford Maverick also ranked in the top three in their segments – meaning seven of the company’s top 10 models ranked in the top three in their respective segments.
FOX Business has reached out to Ford for comment.
