Modules will be used across model ranges and provide a high degree of commonality while allowing for increased variation. As a first step the company is getting dealers more involved in the forecasting process and looking at ways to reduce stock and increase manufacturing flexibility to be more responsive to customer demands. Customers in Britain and Finland can already order cars directly online. In the UK the Internet software looks at existing stock to fulfill the order - if there is no match available then the customer is referred to a dealer to process the order in the normal way. In Finland this is taken one step further and the order is processed directly online.
Dealers still deliver the vehicle and conduct the pre-delivery inspection.
Ford is also looking closely at Volvo and Jaguar. Volvo fulfills a large proportion of its European orders by building cars to specific customer orders but it has a significant buffer in the plant because more than half of production is for the US which is all supplied from stock. Jaguar has just launched what it describes as a virtual production line where prospective buyers can configure their cars, similarly to the Mercedes-Benz Germany plan. The Jaguar configurator is available to users in nine markets and in nine languages, but orders are still placed via a dealer and not directly linked to production. GM already has a consumer website and is offering potential buyers the opportunity to configure a car and search for the dealers in that area that have a match.