Ford hasn’t announced who will replace Jim Baumbick as the automaker’s new quality chief. Baumbick, who has been in charge of quality control at Ford since late 2022, will oversee the automaker’s electric vehicle program and oversee its entire vehicle program team. The team is focused on maintaining Ford’s vehicle costs and launching new products on time.

Ford announced the changes to some internal employees last week and the appointments are expected to take effect early next year. A Ford spokesman said the changes will allow the company’s teams to collaborate and work more efficiently to deliver high-quality vehicles and software to customers.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has made fixing Ford’s quality problems a priority since taking the helm in October 2020. Since then, Ford has optimized production processes to catch errors on time and assigned more workers to identify safety issues.

Jim Farley said: “After three years of hard work, Ford has resolved all the defects in the recalled vehicles. We are now ready to achieve this improvement.”

Since 2021, Ford has led the automotive industry in the number of recalls. Ford has issued 62 recalls so far this year, second only to Stellantis’ 67, while GM has issued 33.

Warranty costs have also weighed on Ford’s profitability this year. In the second quarter of this year, Ford executives said the company’s warranty expenses increased by $800 million from a year earlier, mainly because of problems with vehicles introduced in 2021 or earlier.

Ford shares have fallen 17 percent so far this year, compared with a 43 percent gain for rival General Motors.