The company’s new 2013 models will come with upgraded MyFord Touch, which replaces most knobs and buttons for climate, navigation and entertainment with a touch-screen. The system has both attracted buyers to Ford’s brand and hurt it in some owners’ eyes, says the independent market research firm J.D. Power and Associates.

Ford held customer clinics, and employees have been testing the upgraded system so it’s a “high-quality experience,” Ford spokesman Alan Hall says.

MyFord Touch is now available on 20% of Ford models, including the Explorer and Focus, and will be on 70% of new models by the end of this year.

Ford dropped from fifth to 23rd in J.D. Power’s quality survey last summer, in large part because of this technology. The study looks at problems owners report in the first 90 days of ownership.

MyFord Touch “was a significant issue. Most of their declines from the previous year could be attributed to it,” says David Sargent, J.D. Power’s global vehicle research vice president. “Other than that, their quality was going fairly well.”

Many complaints to J.D. Power centered on the system’s tendency to freeze, which the company called “a hard defect,” and its slowness.

Complicated controls could also be distracting for those “operating the system when trying to drive a vehicle,” Sargent says.

The upcoming fix won’t come in time to boost Ford’s quality rankings in the June Power initial quality report, which only covers vehicles sold through this month. While Ford has made running improvements to the systems, Sargent says those could be offset by the increased number of models sold with MyFord Touch.

It can take up to 45 minutes to teach customers the MyFord Touch system, says Gary Cohen, vice president at Jerry’s Ford in Annandale, Va. But he says it’s “a great system once you set up your profile.”

Consumer Reports said in January 2011 that it couldn’t recommend the Ford Edge or Lincoln MKX because of MyFord Touch. Consumer Reports’ automobile testing director David Champion says newer versions haven’t frozen and are easier to use but still are not “intuitive” enough.

“I think they understand where their issues are,” Champion says. “It’s just whether their arrogance gets in the way of them actually fixing it. ”

Source:http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/story/2012-02-07/ford-mytouch/53014836/1

The US car manufacturer is using an online software tool developed by a team from Cambridge University’s Engineering Design Centre in 2007 to better understand how people with sight conditions see the world.

The simulator reproduces the effects of conditions such as cataracts and colour blindness, and aims to show how even mild visual disabilities can prevent people from reading things.

It allows anyone to upload images of their own designs in order to test how they might appear to people with different sight impairments.

‘One of the unique features of our simulation is the ability to vary the degree of visual impairment from very mild to very severe,’ Dr Sam Waller, an inclusive design research associate at Cambridge University, told The Engineer.

Ford believes many older drivers struggle to read the instruments on the dashboard while driving unless they have bifocal or varifocal glasses.

Other eye conditions such as glaucoma, cataracts and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are also prevalent among those 50 and older.

As a result, the company is using the tool to study and optimise the design of its instrument displays to ensure they can be safely and comfortably read by as many drivers as possible.

Previously, Ford relied on using the ‘Third Age Suit’ to help its designers to better understand the difficulties faced by older drivers. The suit, which includes goggles that simulate cataracts, restricts mobility and lessens the sense of touch.

Angelika Engel, ergonomics attribute specialist at Ford of Europe, said in a statement: ‘The goggles are a very useful tool but this software is a big leap forward because it lets us simulate so many different impairments.

‘For example, if we were to load in an image of a display and process it for red-green colour blindness, you might instantly see that some numbers and letters become a lot harder to read. We can then change the design accordingly.’

Engel added that the software is helping Ford to identify any areas for improvement and to develop solutions to be implemented in future vehicles.

The software has also been used to improve the design of mobile phones and for teaching inclusive design at several universities.

Source:http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/automotive/news/ford-uses-online-software-tool-to-simulate-visual-impairments/1011329.article

Ford Motor Co., which has plunged in quality rankings this year, plans to provide a software patch to more than 300,000 vehicle owners next year to fix malfunctioning dashboard touch-screen controls.

Early next year, Ford will send owners of the Ford Explorer, Edge, Focus and Lincoln MKX a UBS flash drive loaded with new software aimed at fixing problems with MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch audio, phone, climate and navigation systems, the company said today in a statement. Ford said the patch will prevent system failures and make functions easier to use.

Consumer complaints about the touch-screens was a leading reason Ford fell to 20th from 10th last month in annual reliability rankings from Consumer Reports magazine. The technology also was blamed by J.D. Power & Associates for Ford falling to 23rd from fifth in its 2011 new-car quality survey. Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally made quality a pillar of his turnaround plan for the second-largest U.S. automaker.

“If consumers are complaining about it, obviously, we don’t have the level of intuitiveness and the ease of use that we want,” Graydon Reitz, director of Ford’s global electronics and electrical-systems engineers, said Nov. 2 in an embargoed briefing in Dearborn, Michigan. “That’s really what we’ve addressed with this performance upgrade. It’s simpler, it’s more intuitive, it’s faster.”

Consumers will be able to install the software themselves, which takes about 45 minutes, or they can take it to a dealer for assistance, Reitz said. He declined to say how much Ford is spending on the repair program.

Avoiding Reboots

The software upgrade attempts to prevent system crashes, Reitz said. Dubbed the “blue screen of death” by some consumers, drivers have to turn off and restart their car and wait for the system to reboot.

“That’s what we call a stability issue,” Reitz said. “One of the key elements of our performance upgrade is tackling the stability issues head-on and making it stable and solid so we don’t get into reboots and resets.”

Ford also is restoring traditional volume and tuning knobs for the radio and on-off switches for seat warmers in redesigned versions of the Escape sport-utility vehicle, Flex wagon and Taurus sedan coming next year, Reitz said. Those controls have been embedded in the touch screens.

“One of the feedbacks we got from Consumer Reports is that consumers expect to do volume and tune with a rotary knob,” Reitz said. “So if you look at the introduction of our vehicles, you’ll see more of a hybrid with touch screen and key rotary knobs.”

Second Look

Consumer Reports will re-evaluate MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch once it receives the upgrade, said David Champion, auto-test chief for the Yonkers, New York-based magazine used by many car-shoppers.

“Anything they can do to improve this system and decrease driver distraction will make the roads safer,” Champion said in a Nov. 2 interview. “It’s a really complicated system to do stuff that used to be intuitive.”

The automaker said it conducted four consumer clinics over the past year that showed the system is an important reason consumers buy Ford and Lincoln models. Dearborn-based Ford said its touch-screen system accounted for four of the top seven reasons consumers purchase its Edge SUV.

Consumer Reports received many complaints about MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch in its survey of 1.3 million vehicle owners, Champion said. That was the main reason for the decline in reliability of the Lincoln MKX, Ford Edge and Explorer.

‘Fairly Complicated’

“Even if they upgrade the software to make it more responsive, it’s still going to be fairly complicated,” Champion said. “The best way to fix it is to scrap it and start over again.”

Ford redesigned more than 1,000 screens on the system, to make buttons and graphics larger and more responsive, Reitz said.

“Every single function on there is at least twice as fast and there are some five times as fast,” Reitz said.

The improved software should “significantly” reduce distraction and lead to a quantum leap in quality studies, Reitz said.

“We expect a step-change improvement in our quality results,” Reitz said.

Source:http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-07/ford-to-offer-software-patch-to-fix-malfunctioning-touch-screens.html

Ford Motor Company has made a roaring comeback from the precipice much of the auto industry stood at just a few years ago. The company recently reported full-year sales totaled 1.935 million, up 19 percent versus a year ago – the largest increase of any full-line automaker.

However, the auto industry going into the current economic recovery looks very different than just a few years back.

For starters, there’s a growing market in electric and hybrid vehicles, which take a lot of technical expertise to design and perfect.

Second of all, cars are no longer cars. They are computer systems that sit on four wheels.

Just the other day, the automaker announced they are looking to hire 750 people, especially “those with expertise in software architecture, design, prototyping and validation,” says a report in the Detroit Free Press online (Freep.com).

As Ford executive Mark Fields described it, professionals with such expertise “people are game-changers, addressing a whole new generation of consumer needs and desires.”

Source:http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/soainaction/2011/01/ford_is_hiring_again_and_they.php

Ford Motor Company has found a way to utilize Wi-Fi beyond turning its cars into roving hotspots — the company said Thursday that it is using Wi-Fi provisioning on assembly lines to install its SYNC software to eliminate the need to build, stock and store multiple SYNC hardware modules. The approach, Ford said, reduces manufacturing complexity and cost.

The SYNC voice recognition system, which can recognize more than 10,000 commands, operates with Ford’s Wi-Fi enabled MyFord Touch-equipment vehicles. The MyTouch system can be installed in vehicles as they are being built.

“Using wireless software installation via Wi-Fi, we can stock just one type of SYNC module powering MyFord Touch and loaded with a basic software package,” said Sukhwinder Wadhwa, SYNC global platform manager, in a statement. “We eliminate about 90 unique part numbers, each of which would have to be updated every time a change is made – this system really boosts quality control.”

Ford said the installation process has been successfully tested in Lincoln MKX and Ford Edge models in Ontario, Canada, whose production lines have been slated to be the first to use the new Wi-Fi- based technology. Other Ford manufacturing sites are scheduled to follow. The company has said it expects to save millions of dollars by using the new process.

Several other automotive makers have been using Wi-Fi to create hot spots from their cars; however, thus far no other car maker is known to be using Wi-Fi technology to help develop and customize cars in their plants.

Ford’s Wi-Fi transmitters send software to cars to help with the set up of entertainment and data in vehicles. The transmission software also enables consumers to pick options ranging from entertainment attractions to power-seat performance.

Source:http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/systems_management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227100058&subSection=Infrastructure

For some teen drivers, rabble-rousing could be a real challenge this summer.

Ford Motor Co., eager to build on its family-friendly image, has developed technology that allows parents to program the keys to new Ford vehicles so the top speed is limited to 80 mph and the volume on the car’s sound system is cut in half – all to help teens drive more safely.

Called MyKey, the software was introduced last year in the new Ford Taurus and several other vehicles and is now available in about half of Ford’s cars and trucks. Most of the remainder will get it this year, said Andrew Sarkisian, safety planning and strategy manager at Ford.

“A new car is a great expression of freedom,” Sarkisian said. “But parents want to say, ‘How can I stay in the passenger’s seat when they’re driving?’ This is a tool to virtually be in the passenger’s seat all the time.”

There is no cost for MyKey, a feature that only Ford offers, he said. Buyers get two sets of keys with a new vehicle and can designate one as the teenage driver key.

“You stick that key in the ignition and go to the message menu on the car’s computer,” Sarkisian said. “You scroll down to the MyKey settings and select the limitations you want.”

Once the key has been programmed, that menu is blocked anytime that key is in the ignition.

Teens have long been among the most dangerous drivers on the road. They are even worse today because of the added distractions of cellphones and texting.

Among MyKey’s features are:

• The seatbelt reminder chime still sounds at regular one-minute intervals, but the vehicle’s audio system remains muted until everyone buckles up.

• Top speed is 80 mph, the highest speed limit on some roads in the U.S.

• Traction-control systems, which inhibit smoky burnouts in front of the high school, can’t be turned off. In addition, a speed alert chime can be programmed to sound at 45, 55 or 65 mph.

• Even with all seatbelts buckled, the audio system can only be turned up to 44 percent of its total volume, which engineers determined is the maximum level needed to hear a newscast at highway speeds with the windows in the vehicle rolled down.

Most teen drivers don’t like MyKey initially, according to an online survey by Harris Interactive – a finding that should surprise no one. About 67 percent of those polled said they wouldn’t want any of the features.

But that dropped by half if teens thought that MyKey might lead to increased driving privileges.

“We wondered if we were at risk of alienating a future generation of buyers,” Sarkisian said. “But this is a generation that grew up in the 9/11 era. They ultimately understand security concerns.”

Source:http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-mykey_05bus.ART0.State.Edition1.1aad38b.html