It’s only fitting to headline a piece on Ford India with perhaps their most successful ad-line from the nineties, when Ford Motor Co. really made a comeback in the North American market. Ford has always had good cars in the Indian market and each one of them has had a fair number of followers; starting from the Escort (from their M&M JV days) to the Ikon and even the Mondeo (an excellent car which sadly had a rather short life-span in our market) the Fiesta and now, the Figo. Most people love the way Ford’s drive and handle and also come away quite impressed with the build and price. But the one thing in the past that has stopped customers from buying Ford’s in India has been the fact that they’ve lacked confidence in the Ford dealers when it comes to aftersales. And then there’s the entire issue of Ford parts been pricier resulting in a car which is far more expensive to maintain than its competitors. Well FoMoCo has really taken stock of the situation and has ensured that they are not only competitive but provide a far greater level of customer satisfaction than ever before.
It all starts at the dealership really, and Ford has now got a fairly optimized real-time inventory management system in place where you’ll know exactly when your Ford will be ready to be delivered to you. It’s even better since dealers now have full access to view the status of the indented car and can provide a requisition for a car which is on the line but hasn’t been indented for yet. This way, a customer who wants his / her Figo won’t have to wait months on end and dealers can help deliver cars faster to their clients and have fewer cars parked in their yards awaiting customers. Then there’s an increased focus on lowering cost of ownership, which we touched upon when we drove the Figo earlier this year. What Ford has also done apart from launching their Scheduled Service Plan, which is essentially a bumper-to-bumper maintenance package , is also to increase the life of the parts and they’ve gone into the nitty-gritty of it by studying the competition and doing some fairly tough benchmarking.
They’ve ensured that the major components have a split of smaller ‘child-parts’ which will lower replacement costs rather than just replacing the large component as a whole. Take for example the doors on the Figo. Typically during accident damage the entire door needs to be replaced but the Figo has separate door frames from the outer panel, or ‘skin’. So in case of largely cosmetic damage to the door panel, you can just have the outer skin replaced which mounts onto the full door frame. This no doubt, reduces parts cost and can save you a pretty packet when it comes to the overall maintenance cost of your Figo if you have the misfortune of having the door panels damaged. This also means that the body style updates should be easier on the Figo with minimal investment on the full chassis and frames, which will make it easier for Ford to update the Figo over the years with possibly less investment.
And if you’ve been wondering what all Ford has actually done with the US$ 500 million that they pumped into the India operations last year, one visit to the plant will show you all! To start with they’ve heavily automated the production process since the Maraimalai Nagar facility is all set to become a strategic global production hub. In fact, a few hundred Figo’s have made their way abroad. To ensure constant quality and precision there’s a total of 92 new robots which have been installed in the body-shop, paint-shop and the final assembly. The Press Shop which is a significant part of a hundred million dollars is critical to the doing things in-house which ensures optimal production flow and quality control. It’s a real delight to watch steel coils get unwound, sliced and then stamped to form body panels. Ford is also the only automaker in India to have invested in the revolutionary three-wet high-solids paint shop. This system essentially allows for the three layers of wet paint – the primer, base coat and the clear coat to be applied in one go without baking between coats. This results in a significant cost saving since there are fewer ovens (big on power consumption!) and less effluents in forms of noxious gases. Not only is this technology great for Ford in reducing operational costs, but it also ensures that the cars have excellent finishes with great depth and gloss.
Ford’s flex-line for engine production is one place where a lot of investment has gone in. Apart from producing engines for the Indian spec cars, it also produces engine for the export market. (We’re secretly hoping for a Figo ST or SVT with the 1.6 – but to be fair, it’s not on their radar just yet, but we SO want one!). Ford has a unique cold-test facility to test engines fresh off the production line without cranking them but also retain the regular hot-test facility for random production quality checks. So with a total production capacity of 250,000 engines and 200,000 vehicles per year, there’s more than enough capacity at the moment. And with the number of Figo’s we’ve spotted all over the country in such a short time, this is truly Ford India’s comeback car and it’s a good thing they have enough capacity to meet local and global demand.
Ford India has also ensured that they have world-class test facilities where they put the cars through a rigorous test before they okay the car for shipment. There’s the squeak-and-rattle test on their torture track and a high-pressure water leak test (which is inside the plant). The 3.2 km test track is also used to train Ford Employees (and those lucky enough to visit the plant) on their Driving Skills for a Life programme. Post a theory session on how to drive safely, there’s a full demonstration on how a small speed increase can increase safe braking distance, how to pay better attention to the road and largely defensive driving techniques which make for a safer journey for you and your family or friends. So ask yourself when was the last time you drove a Ford or considered one? With their focus on expanding their dealer network (28 in a day is a record!) and sales and aftersales, lower ownership cost, the new generation of Ford’s in India are truly Built for the Road Ahead.
