Taking the Connected Home on the Road

Aug 18, 2008 10:31 AM, By Jeff James

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Click here for a larger image

We participated in Bluetooth [Special Interest Group] SIG-sponsored plug-fests where device manufacturers get together during a prototype or dev phase to ensure that we're headed down a path to compatibility. My team here at Ford has actually developed partnerships with phone manufacturers, media-player manufacturers, and cellular carriers here in the United States to try and stay ahead of all the new device development s and do some prerelease testing. We frequently found defects in portable devices before they came to the market. [As a result of this testing], we also developed a terrific relationship with Apple.

JJ: How many Ford engineers were actually working on Ford Sync from the Ford side?

GJ: The core team developing the technology was about 15 people, give or take. In a company the size of Ford, the [full list] includes a lot of people. [We had] engineers who had to take that technology and build it into our vehicles, people who had to work with our manufacturing processes and our end-of-line test equipment to get all our manufacturing processes ready to build the system, and people behind the substantial IT infrastructure system that [supports Sync]. We actually track the version number and serial number of every Sync system that's built into every vehicle. There also was a tremendous marketing effort that including dealer training. Many of our sales people didn't know what Bluetooth or USB was, so we had to expend an extraordinary effort in creating training programs. I think we had more than 100 trainers that went to coast to coast to visit dealers with portable Ford Sync setups to teach them how to use the system. If you [factor all of those people in], hundreds of people were involved from the Ford side.

JJ: What about on the Microsoft side? Did they actually have engineers on site with you? Did you work together, or did Ford and Microsoft engineers work in two different locations?

GJ: It was a joint team, but it was extraordinarily efficient in its use of technology to let us work from two locations. So we had lots of shared databases, a lot of Internet-enabled meetings and information sharing, and a lot of teleconferences. There was a surprisingly small number of face-to-face interactions, with less than a dozen over the duration of the project. It was an extraordinarily well-coordinated and well-executed process. Both the project-management team that works for me here at Ford and the project-management team at Microsoft were incredibly good at keeping the two teams organized and communication flowing.

JJ: Did you experience any problems with a clash of corporate cultures between Microsoft and Ford during development?

GJ: The entire sync development project was very atypical for Ford, in terms of its speed to implementation from concept to production. We have pretty rigorous product-development rules within Ford that are really designed around the complexity of building something with as many parts in it as a car. A lot of those rules had to be broken in order to get Sync from concept to production in probably less than 18 months.

Sync took on a life of its own within Ford. People at very senior levels were able to see the strategic importance of what my team was trying to do. The 15 guys on the core team were really empowered to do whatever was required and pretty much break any rule that was in place to try to get this launched as quickly as we did. Definitely not a normal part of our culture, but our senior leadership team—really cross-functionally, both from my senior leadership in product development to marketing to assembly operations—all embraced the challenge of bringing this kind of technology to market. [They] really allowed us to operate outside the corporate norms at Ford. Because of that, we were able to behave very much like Microsoft, so there really wasn't a culture clash on the working level. This was really enabled by some senior leadership at Ford that encouraged us to behave differently.

JJ: Ford has been going through lots of internal changes over the past few years. Did all these changes have a positive impact on the development of Ford Sync?

GJ: Sync was enabled internally by a very public initiative [that Ford started] around innovation. About two years ago, Ford made a big public demonstration of our desire and passion for innovation and to have innovative products lead our turnaround. Ford Sync really started when that innovation strategy was taking root, [and] Sync became the internal and external poster for Ford's innovation, at least in our current product set. We aligned with that strategy from the most senior level in the company. That really enabled and encouraged the management assistance we got. Management was really [helping] to keep everyone out of the way.

JJ: What was the biggest technical challenge you faced with the development of Ford Sync?

GJ: To this day, I’m still amazed by the public's reaction to what we've done with Sync. If you look at some of the individual features of Sync, they’ve probably been done elsewhere before, with the possible exception of the ability to use voice control with a media player like an iPod. But the reaction that regular consumers have to Ford Sync in our cars—particularly in lower-end cars like the Ford Focus—is like we put a man on the moon. They can't believe that this kind of technology is possible, especially in something like a Focus.