Ford Edge's Delivery, Derailed

Ford Motor Co. will delay the scheduled delivery of the new Edge. According to Ford officials, it intends to iron out manufacturing problem in its Oakville plant, where said model together with the Lincoln MKX crossover is assembled.

It can be recollected that Ford announced the delivery of Edge to dealerships this month. Since the derailment occurred, it is now expected to be delivered in the month of December this year. "Several thousand of the vehicles have been built and all meet Ford's quality standards, but Ford wants to make sure all of its manufacturing processes are working correctly before delivering the vehicles," said Joseph R. Hinrichs, vice president of North American manufacturing.

Hinrichs added, "The product's ready. We want to make sure that our process is equally ready to deliver, on a consistent basis, the quality and the timeliness of the deliveries that our dealers and our customers expect."

According to Hinrichs, Ford has to do some critical check points on the assembly line work stations to ensure the quality of Ford car parts used in Edge. "We're not yet to the level where the consistency is where we want it to be to launch the vehicles," he added.

It was also divulged that the automaker experienced inventory shortages from auto parts supplying companies. Ford's decision in delaying delivery was supported by auto analysts. "The delay is the correct decision for Ford because quality is so important in today's competitive auto market," said Kevin Reale, research director for Boston-based AMR Research.

"For them to be able to detect this is good. If there's quality issues associated with either their current assembly process or parts, it's better for them to have the detection in the manufacturing process than have the detection occur out in the field," Reale further noted.

Catherine Madden, auto industry analyst at the consulting company Global Insight Inc. said, "Ford clearly has a quality problem at the plant; fixing it has to be balanced against getting the product to dealers when every sales day counts. I think it is prudent to meet those quality standards. Ford is under such a microscope now."