See how Changan Ford, who is ＂detail-controlled＂, makes cars.

　　(Text/Sohu Auto Qiu Liying) Before, a senior said that the strength of a car company only needs to walk around the factory. This time, Sohu Auto walked into the assembly workshop of Changan Ford’s third factory and the core laboratory of a factory in Chongqing with the media. If there were some doubts about the quality problems frequently exposed by Changan Ford before, then this trip opened an impression for us. If I want to use one word to describe my feelings, it is "detail control".

　　The author has participated in the activities of car companies entering the factory many times, but it is the first time that I was asked to wear such a bracelet when entering the factory. In order to prevent close contact with vehicles from damaging the paint and interior, everyone who enters the factory needs to cover the watch and belt buckle. In our impression, such details may only be made by Japanese people who are more hairy, and it is hard to imagine that they will be associated with American cars that have always been rough.

　　"Quality" is the most frequently mentioned word in this activity. Changan Ford’s quality control runs through three links: product design, manufacturing and after-sales service.

　　As the basis of all manufacturing, design and development is the root of a high-quality product. Li Peng, deputy director of the Technology Development Center of Changan Ford Automobile Co., Ltd., told us that the design stage of Changan Ford mainly includes the global Ford product development process, China’s unique environmental conditions and customer demand input, and product verification before launching in China.

　　For Ford’s R&D personnel, any unconstrained design must follow the global Ford product development process. After a hundred years of Ford’s global verification, optimization and experience summary, Changan Ford’s development process has a series of strict node review and product verification requirements. These nodes include project review nodes, engineering review nodes, engine development review nodes, appearance review nodes, vehicle loading, engine installation verification nodes, etc., to ensure that all designs can be finally realized.

　　In order to better meet the needs of consumers, Changan Ford’s input of China’s unique environmental conditions is the most important part in the whole design process. At the beginning of product design, Changan Ford should fully consider the influence of oil, temperature, humidity, road conditions, air quality and altitude. Especially considering the bad weather such as smog in China, in order to fully adapt to various extreme environments, the durability experiment of China dust particles was added, and the doors and trunk were developed to ensure that the air quality inside the car was not affected by the external environment. In addition, for the China market, Changan Ford has also done a lot of research on the preferences and needs of users in China, in order to better meet the consumer demand in driving habits and spatial layout.

　　After the design of localization requirements is completed, Changan Ford will also carry out on-the-spot verification of products before putting them on the market. It is reported that each Changan Ford product has to go through more than 10,000 parts-level experiments and six loading stages before mass production. In the vehicle verification process, each product has to go through more than 1,000 vehicle verifications, and complete the durability test of more than 300,000 kilometers of professional road test lanes and more than 1 million kilometers of comprehensive road test lanes.

　　In addition to the road test, Changan Ford also carried out rigorous accelerated corrosion tests of car bodies. In various environments such as special roads and experimental boxes for corrosion tests, nondestructive analysis of metal materials, disassembly analysis of corroded car bodies and other testing methods were adopted to ensure that each car has sufficient durability to resist the erosion and influence of the external environment.

　　In addition, in terms of suspension system, every model of Changan Ford needs to complete the vehicle-level suspension impact test before mass production. Through the tests of roadside impact test road and square pit impact test road, it is ensured that the suspension system of the vehicle can fully meet the needs of customers, so as to bring excellent driving experience.

　　After the end of the vehicle research and development stage, Changan Ford will strictly select suppliers. Gary, the supplier technical support manager of Changan Ford Technology Development Center, told us that Changan Ford has strict quality access standards in supplier selection, which are evaluated from four aspects: supplier’s business ability, logistics management ability, engineering ability and quality assurance ability. After the supplier obtains the qualification of network access, it will be closely monitored during the development process to ensure that the product can successfully pass the project start-up, prototype stage, trial production and final mass production.

　　Changan Ford strictly follows Ford’s global production system, including seven major systems and seven aspects of consistency, so as to ensure the orderly consistency of the whole production process.

　　Based on the perfect production system, Changan Ford also has advanced production technology and modern equipment:

　　The stamping production line has realized fully enclosed and automatic production. For example, the fully automatic cross-bar manipulator transmission equipment is adopted to ensure that there is no dust pollution and appearance damage of parts during the whole processing process, and the deterioration of human contact with parts during the transmission process is also eliminated. The whole process has realized full automation, high precision and high stability. At present, the production line has reached the leading level of Ford in the world. At the same time, in order to ensure that high-quality stamping parts enter the welding workshop, the product quality is further inspected and monitored by blue light scanning device and three-coordinate measuring device.

　　The whole welding workshop has nearly 500 robots, which makes the welding automation reach the advanced level in the industry. At present, the industry-leading laser welding and brazing technology is adopted in the top cover and side position to ensure the welding quality and improve the production efficiency. In addition, Changan Ford has a perfect inspection system for welding appearance and solder joint quality, including automatic laser inspection equipment that can realize real-time online monitoring of 200 measuring points. With the help of ultrasonic measuring instrument, it can realize full coverage and seamless exploration of solder joints once an hour, thus ensuring the safety and controllability of the welded car body. At the same time, it can also save the vehicle results and trace the defects, which not only ensures high-quality products, but also provides very valuable information for quality tracking and quality control.

　　Changan Ford’s painting workshop also adopts automatic painting production line, which not only leads the industry in VOC emission, but also has excellent performance in product paint quality, and is in a leading position in Ford’s global Asia-Pacific region. Changan Ford adopted a turnover pretreatment electrophoresis production line, which can realize the 360-degree reversal of the car body inclination, thus effectively ensuring zero and uniform electrophoresis film; At the same time, the electrophoretic paint with high swimming permeability further ensures the uniformity of electrophoretic film in the inner compartment of the car body, which greatly ensures the corrosion resistance of the car body.

　　In the assembly workshop, Changan Ford has a fully automatic glass glue installation design. Through 3D video positioning, the front and rear glass can be installed automatically, and the positioning accuracy can be controlled within plus or minus 0.15mm, which ensures the consistency of chassis system assembly and the maneuverability of the whole vehicle to the maximum extent.

　　Fan Jinling, director of the quality department of Changan Ford, needs to go through about 1,600 inspections before each car leaves the factory. The contents and methods of these inspections come from Ford’s more than 100 years of experience in building cars, and some adjustments are made by combining the feedback from customers in China. In addition to the standardized inspection in the production process, every car must stay in the factory for sampling inspection after it is off the assembly line. The combination of standardized inspection and random inspection strives to be foolproof.

　　In order to let us feel the strict inspection standards of Changan Ford more intuitively, this activity also specially arranged an interesting FCDA test: the incoming reporters were divided into four groups to inspect four "problem cars" with the same problems from the perspective of consumers. Although the author tried his best to find it, the problem was so subtle that it was too "abnormal" to find any.

　　In the rain test, we also experienced the most powerful rainstorm we have ever seen in our life. The whole process lasted about three minutes, and more than 200 nozzles sprayed water at the same time, the intensity of which was equivalent to 6 times of the intensity of the strongest rainstorm. Even if the wiper was turned on to the highest grade, we could not see the situation in front of the car. In this case, there is a very high requirement for the sealing performance of the vehicle. Once the sealing performance is unqualified, there will be nothing to hide.

　　Finally, the author and his party came to the western Chongqing proving ground in Dianjiang County to experience the test link of Changan Ford PASCAR.

　　PASCAR is a kind of Ford vehicle durability test. During the test, the durability and reliability information of the vehicle, subsystems and parts can be obtained. Durability is the ability to resist the influence of heavy use, dryness, humidity, high temperature, extreme cold, snow melting, corrosion and oxidation in the design service life (10 years and 240,000 kilometers), without the recession that causes customer dissatisfaction.

　　The whole PASCAR test is divided into two stages, namely stage 1 structural strength and stage 2 dynamic system. The first stage focuses on the accelerated structural durability assessment of chassis and body parts, and the second stage focuses on the durability and high-speed durability of power system.

　　Through PASCAR test, engineers will study the problems collected in the test, and constantly improve the quality of vehicles to meet the use needs of strict customers and extreme customers.

　　Remain true to our original aspiration and keep our mission firmly in mind. In today’s highly competitive market environment, enterprises should be cautious in every step, otherwise they will face market elimination. Changan Ford, which has been established for 15 years, is welcoming users’ scrutiny with a new attitude. We hope that under the goal of quality first, Changan Ford can bring us more excellent products.