Automotive Platform Launches

Problem:

Ford Motor Company considered ITT Industries’ platform launches poor due to Project Management issues.

Solutions:

I developed an initiative called Safe Launch, which aligned all technical disciplines. Safe Launch consisted of combined weekly Master Project Gantt reviews, helping us identify priorities for the ten platform engineers, equipment design, and build engineers. The reviews helped identify engineers with capacity.

Recognizing that our customers created designs for all software platforms that could generate project errors, we started a cross-functional review of all customer drawings called Point-to-Point Analysis. Point-to-Point Analysis often identified customer and even other vendor issues.

Benefits:

Ford Motor Company GYR reports recognized our effectiveness. Poor audits of our processes were eliminated, and Ford Motor Company’s VP of Project Management studied us as a Best Practice.