Smartphone App Helps Ford Quality Inspectors

Ford Motor Co. says a new smartphone application allows plant workers to complete vehicle quality checks seven seconds faster and reduces human errors by about 7% compared with traditional paper-based inspection processes.

The carmaker has been field-testing the system—hailed as an industry first—at its plant in Valencia, Spain, for the last year, and plans to expand it to other facilities in coming months. Ford co-developed the system, which was proposed by Velencia’s production manager Ramon Garcia, with Visia Solutions SL, a Spanish software firm.

Workers are provided an Android smartphone loaded with the app and strapped to their wrists with Velcro. The wearable device lets users verify and approve vehicle specifications and quality information on the spot instead of having to walk back and forth to a desktop computer, which can add an additional half-mile to their daily schedules.

Ford’s Valencia plant makes about 400,000 vehicles a year, including six different models with multiple body styles, trim levels and options. The new Bluetooth-enabled device displays the quality inspection requirements for each vehicle.

Based on positive feedback from workers during the pilot run, Ford is evaluating similar applications for other plant jobs. Valencia also is one of the first Ford facilities in Europe that uses a wi-fi network to download vehicle-specific language and navigation packs for the company’s Sync telematics system.