Ford of Europe has named Gunnar Herrmann, the senior engineer who headed development of the redesigned Focus and C-Max, as vice president of quality.
Herrmann, 52, will be responsible for all aspects of quality at the automaker’s European unit from 1 September. He also joins Ford Europe’s management board and Ford Germany’s supervisory board.
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He will report to Europe chairman and CEO Stephen Odell and Bennie Fowler, Ford Motor Company’s group vice president, quality and new model launch.
He replaces Kevin O’Neill, who was recently appointed chief operating officer at transmission manufacturing joint venture Ford Getrag.
Odell said: “Gunnar’s… experience will help Ford to aggressively pursue our goals in every aspect of vehicle and customer service quality.”
Herrmann was previously vehicle line director, global C-segment vehicles, Ford product development, since 2002. He was responsible for developing 10 vehicles from the single C-segment platform with total annual production exceeding 2m units worldwide.
Herrmann is most noted for his work on the Focus and was a key member of the development team since it was formed prior to the launch of the first Escort-replacing Focus in 1998.
He joined Ford in 1986 working first in body engineering at the Merkenich engineering centre in Germany. After an assignment in the US, he returned to Germany in 1994 to supervise body engineering development for the original Focus, a role he held until early 1997.
In 1998, he became responsible for production quality in all of Ford’s European manufacturing facilities before becoming chief engineer for the development of the original C-Max the following year. From 2001 to 2002, he was chief engineer for the entire C-car range and, in June 2002, he took up his current assignment with global C-segment vehicles.
