Ford, which recently announced it is to create 7,000 new jobs in North America, has had to temporarily lay off workers at its Dearborn truck plant near Detroit because of a shortage of parts for the V6 engines for the F-150 pickup, still the top selling vehicle line in the US.
The shortage has affected availability of the 3.7 litre V6 and the new 3.5-litre EcoBoost V6, both of which come from Ford’s engine plant in Cleveland.
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The F-150 is Ford’s biggest selling and most profitable vehicle. About 3,000 hourly and salaried workers on three shifts have been laid off for one week during which they will receive unemployment benefits with the company topping this up to approximately 95% of their take home pay.
Ford policy prohibits it from naming the supplier of the parts but said the problem is a capacity issue, not a quality issue.
During the sales downturn of the past couple of years, many suppliers cut factories and workers and, as demand has increased, some suppliers have struggled to keep pace.
Analysts believe that shortages may continue to trouble the industry for some years as vehicle sales slowly return to past levels – topping 16m a year in the US. Ford said that no other vehicles or plants are affected by the V6 engine parts shortage.
The company only started building the 3.5-litre EcoBoost engine this month for sale in February. F-Series sales were up 27.7% last year, and the automaker expects further increased volume with the new engine choice.
