"The goal at Ford is to present customers with vehicles that have a 'factory fresh look,' no matter where in the world those customers are located," declares Farzin Ghodsi, Consumer Driven Six Sigma Black Belt at Ford Motor Co.'s Worldwide Direct Market Operations. So when Ford (Dearborn, MI) discovered that some exported vehicles were arriving overseas with exterior surface defects, the company launched a Six Sigma project team to tackle the problem.
The cause of the problem related to Ford's use of a transit protection film applied at manufacturing plants to protect the surfaces of vehicles destined for export, says Ghodsi, who headed the project team. The plastic film was expected to protect vehicle exteriors during transit from the plants to U.S. ports, and then through the ocean voyage to the distributors. But during truck and rail transport, portions of the film were lifting away from the vehicle surfaces, and dirt and debris that became trapped between the loose film and the vehicles were producing the defects. The film had to be repaired or replaced at the ports before the vehicles were loaded on the ocean transport vessels.