Firstly, Rolf when did you start with Ford?
I started in 1990 after graduating in aeronautics. I went to Ford because it’s a very interesting company and a global company. My first project, in 1990, was a very interesting project, the first global C-car – C170, where I was involved in the pre-production development. Then I was the NVH supervisor for the entire engineering at launch for Europe and North America.
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What does your typical day look like at Ford?
I start at 7.30am, to plan my day. From 8.00am onwards I have meetings with the local teams and in the afternoon with North American colleagues. For the large cars the engineering is spread between Europe and North America, so there’s a lot of virtual communication.
How do you get across to your colleagues in North America regional preferences for handling, NVH and other qualitative attributes?
The customers are indeed different. It actually starts when you do the target setting for the vehicle, that’s the phase when we have negotiations with the objective of being aligned on how the vehicle handles, on the NVH, on critical quality parameters, etc. Only if the regions can’t become aligned, and that’s very occasionally, do we do a special derivative for a region.
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By GlobalDataCould you give me an example of a regional derivative?
Well Vignale. That’s only Europe and something that we feel hits the spot for Europe. We’d been selling Titanium for about 10 years and the take rate for it had been growing every year. On Mondeo we’re currently selling 70% Titanium, on S-Max it’s more than 80% – so Vignale makes a lot of sense from that perspective. For Vignale we’re projecting a take rate of around 10%, but we’re still establishing the series and experience. It’s growing every month.
What are the big battles you have to fight with your colleagues in North America pre-programme start?
There aren’t any! The main hurdles to overcome are getting into the global engineering mind-set, but if that is overcome it’s actually easy and less difficult than you would imagine. It’s all part of One Ford. It’s not something you establish overnight, you have to grow but it’s the right route and we become more efficient every year. One Ford is not just about product development, it’s ingrained in everything we do.
We’ve talked about the large car programmes, what about the growing importance of AWD to Ford’s products?
The AWD is also a global system, but like the CD4 platform that the vehicles sit on the engineering responsibility for AWD lies in North America. This is great, as the engineers in North America have many, many years of experience in AWD. It’s a system that is engineered in-house – it’s the same as we use on the Kuga in the C-segment – but it is advanced over the previous Haldex system that we used.
We wanted to implement AWD for many years in Europe, we didn’t really manage to do it, but with this new Ford platform it was a logical step as demand is everywhere.
When you talk about demand, what is demand like for AWD derivatives of CD4?
Demand is growing very fast, especially in Europe. Today we are selling around 10%, we project it will grow to around 20% by 2020.
There are specific markets that were always about AWD – like Switzerland, Norway, Austria and Germany. We were always strong in the Alps region for our cars, particularly S-Max and Galaxy, so adding AWD to those vehicles will make us stronger there.
In terms of technology development in AWD do you have torque vectoring on your systems?
Yes, but using the brakes and using the torque transfer unit. It’s not the same system as we have on the Focus RS, which has active torque vectoring – that has two clutch packs – similar to the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Audi RS6.
There’s a huge focus on reducing CO2 in the industry – with AWD there’s a 3-5% fuel economy penalty, what are you doing to reduce AWD’s CO2 penalty?
CO2 reduction is almost independent from the AWD in general. The aerodynamic efficiency optimisation is continuing – active grille shutters, fully covered undershields – and all the ongoing development in improving engine efficiency.
The AWD system we use is intelligent – because it’s basically a FWD car and we only lock the rear-wheels into the system when required.
You don’t totally disconnect the rear axle in FWD operation?
It’s almost disconnect. There’s a fraction of torque going to the rear. We might do disconnect, but not at the moment.
In everything that turns there are friction losses. For example, every 3-4 years we are bringing newer lower viscosity oils to the market.
Any plans to reduce the weight of the AWD system?
Our AWD system is lightweight already. I’d say the only thing we could look at is to introduce carbon fibre propshafts instead of steel, but that’s technology you’d normally use for sports cars.
In terms of large car development for Ford in Europe, do you see many other opportunities for Ford? Alternatively, do you see the portfolio filled out with the arrival of the Edge?
We have a fairly full portfolio. We have Mondeo as our classic offering, S-Max a very successful crossover, Galaxy as the classic MPV – all have a full range of powertrains, including hybrid on the Mondeo. Now, on top of that, we have the Edge which is a great car combining many positive things. It’s the size of a typical C/D wagon (Mondeo or Passat), has 600 litres of luggage compartment space, a second row seat package almost as good as the Galaxy, and all the technologies we need to compete. It’s very interesting for us and represents a sweet spot in the market.
Other than offering a diesel for the European markets was there any other development of the Edge required?
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It has a few unique systems and components for Europe. It has different suspension tuning, different powertrains. Unique technologies include: adaptive LED headlamps, which we don’t have in North America; ADAS technologies such as brake assist and autonomous emergency braking; a different audio line-up with dual tuner and dual antenna. We can add these things very efficiently: these vehicle all use the same platform and it’s not just the chassis that’s the same but also the electrical architecture so it means we don’t re-engineer just for the edge but that we can "plug and play" the technology with a little bit of individual calibration for the vehicle line or region.
What are your market expectations for the Edge in Europe?
Let’s just say a nice five-digit number per year.
Would there be a tipping point when you’d consider manufacturing it at Valencia?
It’s an interesting question, but I can’t possibly say.
There must have been a lot of technology transfer between yourselves and Volvo over large cars in Europe, do you miss that or was it more of a distraction?
It’s more of a psychological problem. It was a very close relationship, because we were using a common platform with Volvo (D3/P2). When we finished that relationship there was the typical human reaction "ah, you took away the sweets from me". However, it works very well now – the hangover is definitely over.
What do you really feel is a challenge?
Nothing is fast enough. I want to do much more and faster. I can’t wait sometimes. This means for project development, new ideas, getting new projects. It’s all a matter of priority.
Do you still use the Global Product Development System (GPDS) at Ford or is it an evolution?
Yes and it’s always evolving. There are two evolutions roughly per year. There’s a new one just launching. We fine tune it all the time; adopt it to the technologies, addressing lessons learned. I’m glad we have stuck with GPDS as it used to be the case that every four or five years we’d have a new global engineering process and reinvent the wheel. Now we just fine tune. In addition, we have a global team that works full-time to keep GPDS evolving.
How long would it take Ford to develop a new vehicle for market using an existing platform and powertrain?
It depends very much on the content and when you choose to pull the trigger. The very first bit of a programme – pre-PS (pre-Programme Start) – is a bit fuzzy, but for a new top hat programme it’s something like four years and that would include a bit of pre-PS. There’s also a bit of fuzziness towards the end of a vehicle development programme around job one (J1). We have two J1 definitions – first where we have no issues left and we can start mass production. However, what we then do – because there’s been a big change in the way we launch cars in the last few years – we plateau at around 30 cars a day for about five weeks, which allows the cars to go through a very intense quality check and feedback loop. Only when everything is OK do we ramp up.
The auto industry is going away from the mechanical bits and pieces, but you still have that huge cost in the business on to which you have to add the electronics and connectivity demanded today. How much of a challenge is that?
It’s a huge challenge. Firstly, it’s a challenge to find out what is the right trend in terms of what the customer really wants. Then the challenge is to integrate into the car with the right quality. There are so many types of software these days in the car that it is very, very difficult to make sure that all modules in the vehicle interact properly together. And then if we move to the next level of electronics in the car it’s going to make it even more complicated, while still making sure nothing can go wrong. For example, if we are talking about embedded modems for connectivity in the vehicle you have to make sure you don’t have a cyber-attack.
What about keeping the technology up-to-date over the lifecycle of the car?
Yes, that’s quite a challenge. We usually have a vehicle lifecycle of six or seven years and in between we have an MCA (Model Cycle Action); we use that to roll-in updates. On top of that, we change the strategy a little, as now we use more and more modules, which are engineered to ensure compatibility with future technology. For example, the in-car entertainment system – SYNC II – will be replaced by a new SYNC generation pretty soon and that will be fully compatible with the rest of the fleet. Another example is the blind spot detection system, which is another module we can update within the cycle.
Does it cost you anything to have that capability already engineered for the future and not launch with it?
The cost is negligible, but it has to be planned before we launch a vehicle. We have our Commodity Business Plans (CBPs) that look at the commodities and the technology, so when we plan the vehicle lifecycle we know already which commodity is ready to be picked up by the vehicle.
