Ford plans to reduce its investment in manufacturing by around 8% through more standardisation of its manufacturing processes worldwide.
According to the Detroit Free Press, under the ‘One Ford’ plan, single operational procedures will be followed in the automaker’s nine Asian plants, mainly in China.
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Ford plans to sell around 8m vehicles annually by 2015, up from 5.1m in 2011.
Currently, Ford is concentrating on reducing production in Europe, where sales are slow, and to expand operations in the US where demand is seen growing slowly.
Ford is currently adding a third shift at many of its North American plants as it plans to make an additional 400,000 units this year to meet demand.
However, Ford has no plans to close any European plants until it has more fully assessed the situation in that region.
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By GlobalDataThe automaker plans to cut the number of core car platforms to nine by 2015 while increasing the derivatives of each. It will boost its flexible body shop count 65% and will be able to make an average of 4.5 models per plant by 2015, up from 3.6 in 2011.
Ford’s Chinese plants are able to produce as many as seven models while, in the US, the Michigan Assembly plant in Wayne can build the Focus and its Electric spin-off and is planning to add C-Max hybrid and plug-in hybrid derivative.
