Why Ford takes more than a billion photos every two weeks

Every day special workers at +Ford Europe secretly place wrong parts and faulty components on the assembly line. But rather than working for unscrupulous rivals, it's done to make sure that every engine meets rigorous quality standards.

The process was introduced after the an industry-first Vision System technology was installed at Ford's Valencia plant. The Vision System photographs, checks and tracks each and every component of the 400,000 cars and vans, and the 330,000 engines built there each year.

The So called "Gremlins Tests" are an innovative way of ensuring that new process is working correctly.

The Vision System captures more than a billion photos every fourteen days, comparable to the number of photos uploaded to Instagram in Europe. 

So far, faulty engine parts, wrong steering wheels, and even incorrect dashboards have been sent down the line, with the “Gremlins Test” now extended to all 34 stages of assembly.


The system is working so well that +Ford Motor Company is considering rolling it out worldwide.