Nine suppliers have joined Ford on a supplier manufacturing campus located near the Chicago Assembly Plant and employing up to 1,000 people.
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Such supplier parks are common in countries such as but Ford is claiming a first for the US.
Suppliers include Sanderson (stampings), Tower Automotive (stampings), ZF-Lemforder (suspension), Visteon (instrument panels, fuel tanks, engine coolant components, S-Y Systems (wiring), Summit Polymers (injected plastics), Plastech (injected and blow molded plastics), Brose (door components) and Pico (manufacturing equipment).
The 155-acre park is a collaboration between Ford, Chicago-based CenterPoint and local and state officials and the group is investing more than $US250 million in the campus and related infrastructure improvements during the next four years, bringing life back to a brownfield site that has been vacant for 40 years.
The suppliers will deliver parts and equipments for Ford#;s new Crosstrainer SUV/sedan crossover vehicle and the planned 500 sedan.
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By GlobalDataThe Chicago plant currently builds the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable but production of those will soon be consolidated at their second plant in Atlanta, Georgia.
The supplier park will open in 2003 and become fully operational in 2004.
“This supplier manufacturing campus is our first manufacturing supplier campus in the United States, and it is the first one anywhere that started with a mature assembly plant,” said Ford vice president of manufacturing and quality Roman Krygier.
“It will increase flexibility, allow for quicker response to customer preferences, lower inventory costs and help control shipping and capital costs.”
In order to accommodate the two new models the plant’s body shop will become more flexible to allow for a quicker changeover.
“We are bringing in new production concepts and tooling that greatly enhance the plant’s flexibility and quality efforts,” Krygier said. “For example, an electrified monorail system and flexible tooling will allow rapid changeovers – even if we switch from a small car to a SUV.”
He added that the plant will use laser welding to attach the roof to the body to provide structural integrity to the vehicle – another industry first in the United States. Dimensional pallets will carry the vehicles through the underbody and framing tools, adding dimensional integrity.
Additionally, the plant’s paint processes will be cleaner. While the new vehicles produced at the plant will have a larger painted surface than the Ford Taurus, annual tons of volatile organic compounds produced will drop.
The park also will allow for cross-tier supplier relationships. For example, S-Y Systems will ship main-body wire harnesses for cars directly into the plant. At the same time, they will deliver wire harnesses to suppliers such as ZF-Lemforder, Visteon and Summit Polymers for use in the new models.
More than half of Chicago Assembly’s external putchases will come from the supplier campus.
Market changes can be addressed more quickly with suppliers in close proximity and quality is enhanced with supplier involvements on the integration of the design of the parts with the assembly process.
Other benefits include reductions in inventory-carrying costs. Today, materials travel an average of 450 miles to the Chicago assembly plant. Bringing key suppliers together will reduce the average trip to just 125 miles.
Some of the suppliers will share a building; others will be next door. Six buildings totalling 1.5 million square feet are planned.
