”I wonder if the people who developed the stop button program realize that what you say is true through out Ford. I also wonder if the people from Ford who supposedly read this pass it on to anyone in charge, or if they only pass on what they think will not get them in trouble. In a strong work zone, several people will turn off the buttons until the problem is fixed. The foreman will threaten to fire someone for this so your union rep is important as well as you building chair.”

“The offical name of the stop buttons are the QAS system, which stands for Quality Assureance system, sure wonder how many of these supervisors know that? Since it was put in many plants when quality WAS job 1, now most think it is just something for the hourly to get someone to thier work area only.”

“I work at the ohio assembly plant and actually we don't have a problem with stoping the line.Our supervisors tell us to stop the line, they come up and check the problem out, and usually its resolved. Thats been the mind set for the past two years probably. Now there is one supervisor on nights that does turn the line back on and tells you to run it . He runs junk constantly and everyone knows it. But no one does anything about it because he gets his number every night. Quantity is job 1...”

“I wonder how ofter is it abused... and this is why mgmt does this.example STOP.
"whats wrong"
"there's a piece of lint on this seat. I can't put in it."
"okay. start up the line"
"what? where the QC? No wonder people dont buy these"”

“Being in maintenance I don't feel it, I watch it and this is what I see. I see the foreman yelling "Turn the line on" as he is coming down the line towards the problem without knowing what the problem even is. Then as he turns the line on someone explains the problem to him and he says "Someone will have to pick it up down the line".... someone? Run before having an answer? or if it is a parts quality issue they simply flag the numbers and then come in on weekends and down weeks to take the truck apart and change parts.It is always cheaper to build it twice than do it right the first time.”

“100% of what i posted is true, i am in the assembly end of the business and you would not believe what i see happen to these trucks before they are ready for shipping to the dealer. i am positive that my management team would not intentionally ship a unit to the customer knowing that there is quality defects, but what happens is that as the truck is being built in different areas of the plant such as frame line, chassis line, engine line, trim dept, ect. everyone must keep the line running therefore there are small, minor defects that are found on every line. sometimes these small defects get overlooked because they may not be written on the mcir card, which, if we could stop the line without the FEAR of being written up and sent home, these small defects would be fixed in our work areas. so what if we build 25 less trucks in a shift.....at least all of them would be 100% quaLity. look at how much this could save the company in warranty repairs alone. not to mention the amount of money they would get from repeat customers and increased market share.”

“I'm gonna tell you that the rear end in the f-150 is most likely bad. The only thing that management is concerned with at Sterling Axle is QUANTITY. Don't take it, don't make it, and don't pass it on. UAW quality tell us to keep the assembly lines and plants running all the time at whatever cost. Management agrees of course. So in 2 or 3 years when GM and Toyota steal our bread and butter don't scratch your head and wonder why. We are not allowed to blow whistles, only toot horns!”

“im not dogging our product, but i work in trim as well, and i see every day management ripping peoples asses for shutting the line off. delta jobs dont mean shit here. quaNity is what matters here. keep the line running and get 770 trucks and go to the house, worry bout tommorow when it gets here, thats managements perspective. thats 1/2 the reason fomoco is in the boat its in right now“

“I dunno, but kinda guess the truth stops at the line super's level. I'm sure if one of Mr.Fords accounting people showed the cost of rework vs halt/fix, there might be a few items cheaper to rework- but the guys on the line likely have enough common sense to decide say a misprinted airbag decal on a sun visor would be cheap to swap out vs a transmission type of thing. If supervision cant make that call, they need replaced... if they CAN make the call, then they need to document and make SURE its corrected downstream. Ive never even seen a final assembly plant, but have been thru a old GM transmission plant we sold a machine to, that was friggin huge, cant imagine the logistics of keeping a assembly plant running...also cant imagine the cost of stoppage per hour or minute even...be open minded, maybe it is cheeper to fix offline- AS LONG AS THEY (supervision) DOCUMENT IT to insure its correct before going out. Restarting before seeing sounds like they are willing to scrap a truck to keep things rolling, as they dont know how bad the problem even is...

the bottom line of these tactics needs to be full circle- if the guys afraid hes gonna miss budget due to stoppages, he might shove shit thru to keep his department 'on budget'. OK- but is ALL repair/rework(warranty from dealer should count times ten) taken from his budget too??? I bet its not, just lost in the quagmire of a huge corporation...Ive seen smaller(much) scale things in our departments- one will try to take parts from another so 'its not on my budget', but in the end its all out of the companies coffers. It REALLY pisses me off when one dept hoards stuff to 'look better' and might have a dozen expensive widgets locked away somewhere, then a machine goes down and that dept has to buy one- its bullshit, and it goes on everywhere. everyones gotta watch the actual bottom line cost if we're gonna survive...small shop or huge corporation, budgets dont always show the truth.
heard a joke a long time ago- two guys go in for a accounting interview- they ask 'whats two plus two', first guy says 4. next guy asked same question, answers 'what do you need it to be?'. guess who gets the job...I often wonder about the cross border plants quality cost...I bet the cost of shipping halfway around the world, combined with (percieved?) increased flaws requiring warranty claims, plus the lost future sales that grow as a percentage of every service visit, might not REALLY save all that much money. probably saves SOME, but doubt if its 10-30% of the wage difference- but subtract all the ex-north american workers from the equation, I bet is a wash- sooner or later it will be anyway, as it appears they want to move EVERY job elsewhere, leaving no buyers...we're in the race to the bottom, and we're all getting there fast.”

“Maybe with this delayed launched of the superduty, They'll open up their eyes and fix the problems then! But you know what management's answer will be everytime. "Everything is fine and O.K." KISS MY ASS YOU LIARS! IF YOU WOULD HAVE DONE YOUR JOBS AND QUIT YOUR FINGER POINTING GAMES LIKE YOU DO DAY IN AND DAY OUT. WE WOULDN'T HAVE THESE PROBLEMS NOT ONLY AT STERLING, BUT EVERYWHERE ELSE! Same goes for the union as well.”

“People just dont get it, they want shitty products and defects, then they can say that plant is not making a quality product and then they can shut it down, then ship the stuff to mexico, where the wages are $29 a day, and no union, who cares what the quality is then because the profits would out weigh it.
They want the American Public to keep believing that North America sector is unprofitable, Period. What I would like to know is WHY managment allows this to go on???? wont they be out of a job too?
It is a total shame,,,”

“An artical in theDetroit news today said it perfectly. "Ford management has come across as either inept in delivering their message, arrogant in holding back details or fearfull of flunking the test that they set for themselves".

Bill Ford Jr. is taking the company down the same path that his family has led with the Loins Poor choices on whom to trust with their assets. Mark Fields is no Lee Iococca or even Richard Smith. The real succussful leaders dont want anything to do with Ford. Could it be that the Company is in to deep of debt and have lost all of their talented engineers. They are affraid of their own shadow and keep churning back and forth.

Investors, customers and employees look on in amazement as to the follies the leadership of this once great Co. makes them go through, ARG.”

“What is truely sad is every employee on this forum would rather be posting on a thread called "Ford's great management" rather than "Piss poor management". No one that I have ever met came into Ford with a bad attitude towards them but most people have a bad attitude concerning the company within 2 years.

Why is that?”

“People come in with dreams. and go out like they were hit by a train. I could not believe this system when I got here. It was bad then and is in worse shapenow. No matter what you did or how hard you work you will be crushed by the system.

What will it take to fix it, I dont know because doing your job the right way the first time did not work. Showing up everyday ready to work didn't do it, Coming up with ideas to save or earn more money didn't work so who knows.”

“We cannot stop caring about our jobs or the future of our jobs. When you do the right thing with the STOP button procedure, you end up with a target on your back. This isn't the way Mr. Ford wants his company to be run. If he knew what was going on, he would do something about it. When a plant manager sits in a quality meeting and tells everyone there that if we check our processes 100% with all of our problems right now we would have 40% fall out. We cannot scrap 40% and keep our assembly lines and plants running. That is the attitude at my plant. What happened to don't take it, don't make it, and don't pass it on?”

“Interesting posts re the conditions on the assembly line and how the local management just wants to get the cars out the door to the customers or should I say ex customers!

I purchased a 2006 Montego after evaluating what else was out there.

Wrote to the Chicago plant manager after exhausting other avenues and never received a response about the issues below:
Took delivery in October and since then had the following problems:
ABS sensor came on at 500 miles repaired,

At 2500 miles Main Airbag warning light came on. Light goes off when turned off. Dealer could not find code. It came on again and dealer still did not find code. Took car to another dealer at the suggestion of Ford customer service and a code was found relating to Occupant Classification System. Took car back to selling dealer(name will be provided on request) and suddenly they found same code.

Arranged with dealer to return car on Feb 27 for service only to be told that FORD is aware of the problem and is working on the problem.(Ford Techhotline)

Airbag light came on 2 months ago while driving alone and I immediately took it to my dealer and the code was the same refering to the occupant classification system.

Have been informed that there is to be a software update issued in May that should fix issue.
In early May they replaced toe Occupant Classifaction Module and yes the problem reoccured while driving after finally getting my wife to go back in the car

In addition the the 2 items above the following are also issues that I am/have had; GPS not recognizing address, struts and springs were already replaced(grinding banging when at slow speed-parking, there is a rattle in the passenger compartment that they do not hear, front seat leather is rippled and was replaced and ripples appear in the same spot( like maybe something underneath are causing the ripples),
brakes make excessive noise and more pressure when car is left overnight(told that brakes can be noisy on first application of brakes due to rust buildup on rotors overnignt) then the oval dash clock stopped working.

I am now waiting for the paperwork to make it to the dealer level as FORD will be buying back the car.

Any comments from Chicago assembly workers and yes I know that others have had more reliable cars with O defects. Guess that I was the lucky one!!!!!”

“How do I know if the faults were with assemply or parts related.

There was a sticker on the vehicle that quality is job 1 well not in the case of my vehicle. Felt that it should have been FIX OR REPAIR DAILY=FORD

When I buy anything I expect that it will work as intended.

Ford builds the vehicles and then a franchise will sell the vehicle.
If there are problems the service department at the franchise will repair the vehicle and FORD will pay them for doint the repairs.
Its just the consumer that is screwed in my case for 5 months.

Airbags according to the owner of the selling dealership are supplemental to seatbelts. So I wonder why they are there at all.”

“At TCAP we pulled the sticker reffering to quality since we didn'y feel the company had a commitment. I'm not sure if someone since then has agreed to slip it back in.”

“because thats the way management is. its all about writing people up and getting people in trouble. its really a shame that we cant have supervisors that treat thier people like humans instead of like animals. my veiw is if you treat your people good you get much better work and your people have much higher morale. when people are treated like shit, thier morale goes out the window, and the dont do near as good of a job. i work much harder for a boss that treats me like a person. i would even go as far as doing them favors that are not part of my job, just to help us run better and be more productive, but when i am treated like a dog, i do my job, no more and no less.”

“Hello KTP69! I work at MTP on the assembly line. Saw the subject of piss poor management and couldn't agree more! QAS?? HaHaHa!!! The big reply from supervisors on a red light is "We'll catch in on the fly. Turn it on." I'm on a delta job. Should crossthreads, spinners, missing clips, etc. be caught on the fly??? This is public safety we're talking about here. Quality Job 1?? HaHaHa! And something else that wasn't mentioned by you or anyone that replied to you: A supervisor or anyone else who turns the line back on without asking what is wrong is seriously endangering other employees. What if someones foot was stuck in the line?? When are these people going to get a clue? Safety? Ha!!! Also, did you guys read about MTP emplyees taking 40 minute bathroom breaks?? It was in the newspapers, local tv news, as well as CNN!! How disrespectful is that???”

“Hey, man you are 100% CORRECT!! I've been in TRIM for nearly 9 years and it's a constant battle against the ineptitude of middle and upper plant level management. All of us @ KTP are in the same boat. It takes some a little longer to see the light. Ford isn't the only place to work. Don't let the union scare you with," at least you gotta job". Fuck that and the neo nazi strong armed tactics.”

“That is one of the worst things the union could possibly be saying to anyone. Maybe they should be saying "At least you have a job for now" since that attitude will cause worse quality and more lost customers which will reduce market share which will cost more jobs in the end. The union has lost its way but that is a different topic.“