Once again, good old Blighty has helped out Ford’s F-150 series across the pond. You’re welcome. Few weeks ago, we learned the new three litre diesel V6 engine for the top selling North American pickup truck line comes from England. The engine is a variant of the three-litre turbodiesel sold in Jaguar and Land Rover models and is built at the Dagenham Engine plant just east of London. This week, we’ve been helping out with bits. Magnesium castings, to be precise.
You’ll recall that, last week, we reported Ford supplier Meridian Magnesium Products had been hit by a fire at a Michigan (Plymouth) facility that had resulted in a shortage of die-cast components parts that had halted production of the F-150 pickup and some heavy duty variants. This week we learned of the amazing job done by Ford, its global supply chain team and various logistic and transport specialists to get parts output back on line. PDQ.
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The teams removed 19 dies from Meridian’s badly damaged facility, and in one case, moved an 87,000lb die from Eaton Rapids to another Meridian factory in Nottingham, England (oh, the benefits of being a global supplier), via an Antonov cargo plane – one of the largest in the world – in just 30 hours door to door. I’d love to know where the Antonov set down as Nottingham airport is only for puddle jumpers. I’d go with nearby East Midlands.
Ford said work started immediately in the aftermath of the fire with its teams gaining approval to access the site while debris still smouldered inside. This allowed automaker and supplier to safely retrieve and relocate tools to more quickly resume parts production and work to minimise the financial impact of the stalled plants. Ford recovered, repaired and validated most dies that were at the Eaton Rapids facility, and Meridian is now producing parts for the F-150 at two locations – undamaged sections of the Eaton Rapids factory and Nottingham. Production of bolsters for Super Duty is also restarting at Eaton Rapids.
Under normal circumstances, moving tooling the size of a bolster die would take approximately 10 days just to get the proper import and export approvals. However, Ford and its suppliers managed to cut the total time for the entire move to 30 hours, including trans-Atlantic flight time. When the team removed the die from the Eaton Rapids factory, it was shipped to Rickenbacker International Airport in Columbus, Ohio. Rickenbacker had both the capacity to handle such a large piece of equipment and allowed an Antonov An-124 Russian plane, one of the largest planes in the world – typically used to transport trains, dump trucks and even a 25-foot sea yacht – to take off as soon as the equipment was loaded.
Nearly 4,000 miles away, a team in Nottingham was waiting to receive the die and take it to Meridian’s nearby factory. In between, the Ford team received a UK import licence for the die – a mere two hours before the plane touched down. Parts produced at Nottingham are being shipped via daily flights on a Boeing 747 jet until production in Eaton Rapids returns to pre-fire levels.
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By GlobalDataAmazing job, all parties concerned. This is the global supply chain working at its finest.
I’ve been satisfying my fetish for plug-in vehicles with a look at Volvo’s XC60 PHEV (same lovely T8 ‘twin engine’ drivetrain as the XC90) and a new writer on the team, Mike Vousden, has been examining the implications of WLTP for the automotive industry. Following the revelation that BMW has had to pause or cease manufacture of some models thanks to the upcoming WLTP introduction, we consider what implications the new procedure has for OEMs.
We also took a look at VW’s vision of car interiors – a mobile living space without a steering wheel and, newbie Mike again, eyed future models from Renault Samsung.
Another Tesla executive jumped ship, Volvo said no more diesel (or European made) S60 sedans, and VW is the latest to say ‘non’ to attendance at the Paris show.
Have a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
