Behind the Scenes of Pro Power Onboard
Whether it’s powering up a home during a natural disaster or providing a handy source of electricity for a work or recreation site, Ford’s Pro Power Onboard has proven to be an incredible asset for our customers.
But where did the idea for this game-changing feature come from, and how was it brought to life?
Dante Crockett, chief systems engineer, Features, Platform Systems & Functional Safety, Ford Model e, leads a global team responsible for 70% of the engineered customer experiences on all Ford and Lincoln vehicles – everything from windshield wipers and locking systems to lighting and more advanced features like Intelligent Backup Power and the Mega Power Frunk. But back in 2016 when the idea for equipping a Ford truck with an onboard generator was suggested, that team didn’t exist.
“The truck user experience team had developed some ideas for unmet customer needs, and one of them was to provide an integrated generator in our pickups to provide extra power,” said Crockett, who at the time headed up a forum designed to capture new ideas that needed software support.
“I approached my director and said we need some resources to be able to start doing some scoping work,” he said. Team horsepower secured, Crockett began working across teams. Tony D’Amato and the Product Development Leadership Program were brought in for the systems engineering effort, a key step. Crockett explained that D’Amato needed to “figure out if it could work, how much it was going to cost and whether it was feasible or not?”
The original request was intended for the 2021 F-150 ICE and hybrid vehicles. The feature will now be available on F-150 -- ICE, hybrid and Lightning -- Super Duty, E-Transit and Transit Custom with more vehicles planned in the future.
“So, we started bringing in subject matter experts from a variety of skill teams – powertrain controls, power supply, hybrids and body interiors – that were obsessed with engineering a complete customer experience with quality,” said Crockett. All that input paid off and helped define a new way of working. “The team was willing to take a risk on developing something great for our customers, even though there wasn’t a well-established process to execute it. Their work ended up serving as a blueprint for our features team now.”
Vyas Shenoy, a young engineer just starting his career at Ford joined the Pro Power Onboard team for the testing phase. He’s stuck with it since. Today, he is the feature systems engineer currently responsible for the complete development of Pro Power Onboard from cradle to grave.
“We take the requirements. We put a customer’s hat on, think about how Pro Power Onboard should work and what the ‘wow’ factor is for the customer,” he explained.
If Pro Power Onboard were a 10,000-piece Lego set, Shenoy would be the one writing the many pages of step-by-step instructions.
“I have to come up with all the ‘what ifs,’ so I must wear multiple hats. The most important is the customer hat. I must put on the engineering hat because engineering is the core value to deliver. I also must wear a scrutiny or tester’s hat. And then a systems-engineering hat so that the team can design the feature based on all the requirements. Everything down to when the lights in the interface should turn on or blink has to be specified in detail. Then all the specifications are cascaded to the subsystem team so they can write the software codes.”
Shenoy is also responsible for writing the test procedures for Pro Power Onboard – how it needs to be tested and what the results need to be. He also must ensure that the feature meets the regulations and requirements of the different markets where the vehicles with Pro Power Onboard are sold.
When Shenoy joined the Pro Power Onboard team, 60% of the initial specifications were complete for the 2021 F-150 hybrid and gas models. He picked up the process at the testing phase. He led the entire process for the F-150 Lightning, including the development of what is called Pro Power Reserve.
“When it comes to a battery electric vehicle (BEV), the state of charge is an important goal for the customer. We don’t have that issue with ICE and hybrid vehicles because fuel is readily available. You can top the vehicle with fuel and boom, Pro Power Onboard can be used,” he explained. “When it comes to the BEV, we were challenged to understand how we’re regulating the power so that the customer doesn’t overdraw it from Pro Power Onboard and then get stranded.”
The invention that Shenoy and team created enables the customer to select when they want to stop using Pro Power Onboard, based on the number of miles they need to reach a charging station.
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“Let’s say a customer has a total of 300 miles worth of charge, and they are within 50 miles of a charging station. They can select 50 miles, and the feature will let them know when they’ve reached that level and ask them if they want to continue,” said Shenoy.
The second part of the invention is an enhancement to that.
“Let’s say the customer is at a camping site and wants to know how much Pro Power Onboard they can use based on the nearest charging station. They can pull up information from the smart trip planner, select the nearest charging station and the feature will automatically adjust to provide the number of miles needed to reach that charging station,” he said.
The F-150 Lightning and its requirement for two power inverters presented additional challenges compared to the single unit hybrid and gas models carry.
“It may sound very simple, but we had to double the work to make the feature function,” he said.
The team under Crockett continues to innovate and develop must-have features that enhance the Ford ownership experience. Currently there are more than 200 customer-facing features in the existing catalog and several new experiences coming in the pipeline. Shenoy manages the ongoing complexity of delivering a consistent customer experience even with differing underlying technology across all vehicle types, including re-architecting the feature experience on the future software platform.
And after a feature is deployed, the team continues to monitor it in the field so that it can be continuously improved for future iterations.
“We’re taking customer usage data to say, is there anything that needs to be corrected or anything that we can learn that would help make the feature better in the future,” said Crockett.
Both Crockett and Shenoy emphasized the fact that the development of Pro Power Onboard has been a team effort.
“For the systems engineers and the features team, this is their life’s work,” said Crockett.
Pro Power Onboard was named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2021, and Crockett said the team continues to be inspired every time they hear a story about a customer taking advantage of the feature.
“In every natural disaster, the amount of positive feedback we get on Pro Power Onboard is overwhelming,” he said. “Our hearts are touched by our ability to help our customers.”
The following team members are acknowledged for their contributions to Pro Power Onboard:
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