The program, which includes a combination of in-class seminars and online course work, is a condensed version of a three-year course previously offered to Ford's UAW quality representatives. It's intended to bring skills to the manufacturing front lines faster, Ford and UAW officials said. Quality representatives are UAW members charged with overseeing standards on vehicle production lines. 'With the competition we have in the area of quality, we don't have the time to waste,' said Dan Brooks, assistant director of the UAW's Ford department. 'We need them up to speed quickly.' The program, he added, is also a win for the union because it will help improve the job security of its members. The effort comes at a pivotal time for the automaker, which plans to ramp up production of its compact cars to offset losses in truck and SUV sales and match soaring consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. In early August, Ford executives vowed to ratchet up the quality of their vehicles -- which already has been trending upward in recent years -- and take on rival Toyota Motor Corp. as the leader in industry rankings starting with a new small car lineup in 2010. 'Our goal is to become the best quality-producing manufacturer in the world,' said Philip Calhoun, Ford's director of manufacturing quality for the Americas. 'We feel strongly that these tools will enable us to do that.' Expanding quality trainingThe course work, which began in June, focuses on everything from basic computer training to complicated analytical skills that workers can take back to the production line, said Ahmad Ezzeddine, associate vice president for education outreach at Wayne State. The training will lay the groundwork for certifying workers in Six Sigma, a program that teaches employees how to use data and statistical analysis to solve problems and root out waste. Six Sigma is a widely used system for identifying and eliminating the causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and business processes. The Dearborn carmaker has committed to sending at least two hourly workers from each of its U.S. factories through full training to become certified Six Sigma black belts, the gold standard for quality proficiency. Ezzeddine said Ford and the UAW worked closely with Wayne State to tailor the training to specific real-world needs on the shop floor. 'It really focuses on what they are facing and they need to know and the skills in their current jobs,' he added. 'We built all of this around the roles of quality representatives as they now exist.' Although the training started only in June, Lowery said, he can already envision applying some of the lessons ahead to his work in the assembly plant. The 39-year-old Redford Township resident, who started as a line worker 13 years ago at Ford, said the course work is teaching him to track statistical data culled from the assembly line, identify problem areas and contain them before the vehicle rolls off the line. That kind of quality oversight, Lowery noted, benefits Ford's products and his job security. 'It makes me feel good,' Lowery said. 'I have the opportunity to contribute some input.' Separately, Ford started classes in April to certify hourly employees as Six Sigma black belts. While such training typically has been reserved for plant managers and engineers, Ford is now standardizing the program to ensure that each of its 25 plants nationwide is armed with a black-belt-certified hourly worker on the shop floor by 2011, company officials said. A 'pretty deep commitment'Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California-Berkeley, described Ford's efforts to standardize Six Sigma training for its hourly workers as 'groundbreaking' and likely to 'raise the bar' on quality oversight for the entire auto industry. 'They are showing that overtaking Toyota in quality is not something you say,' he said. 'It's going to require a pretty deep commitment.' And the timing, he noted, also is significant. 'They are doing it during pretty hard times,' Shaiken said. 'This would be an easy thing to cut. Ford is underscoring in a rather dramatic way the importance of quality.'