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" Ford President Jim Padilla has told employees that the automaker must improve vehicle quality because it&amp;#039;s losing ground to the competition, the Detroit News reported.   The company needs to &amp;quot;turn this around now,&amp;quot; Padilla wrote in a live online question-and-answer session with employees, according to a transcript obtained by the News. &amp;quot;This applies to virtually all brands in all geographic regions. Our competitors are moving faster than Ford to improve their quality....[And] &amp;quot;Globally, our quality performance and improvement has not been satisfactory.&amp;quot;   Padilla has led an &amp;quot;intense drive&amp;quot; to improve Ford&amp;#039;s vehicle quality in recent years as the company has spent tens of millions of dollars on state-of-the-art technology and advanced training to boost quality, the story said.   &amp;quot;The cost of poor quality is the single largest waste in our business,&amp;quot; Padilla wrote. &amp;quot;Quality reputation is also the largest determinant of brand reputation and loyalty so we need to make major strides in reducing our warranty repairs per thousand, cost per repair and things gone wrong.&amp;quot;   The comments from Padilla were in answer to a question from an employee who asserted that Ford&amp;#039;s quality is on the decline and asked what could be done to reverse the slide. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a11200/ford-boss-not-happy-with-quality/>