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Increased Demand Obliges Ford to Boost Production Capacity

Better and better new car sales in the United States of America, parts of Europe and the Asian continent are beneficial for all of the Big Three from Detroit. In Ford Motor Company’s case, increased demand for models such as the F-150, Edge, Escape and Explorer made the Blue Oval ramp up the output of US plants.
Ford LAP Plant 1 photo
Photo: Ford
The FoMoCo people responded to increased customer demand for 2015 and 2016 model year products just in time to produce an extra 40,000 vehicles this year. This action is the result of idling a number of assembly plants for only one week as opposed to the traditional two-week summer shutdown.

Those 40,000 vehicles over the projected yearly output come as a result of the shortened summer shutdowns. In 7 days, engineers and workers alike will join hands to operate maintenance work and add tooling. 6 assembly plants, along with supporting powertrain and stamping facilities, will shut down only the week of June 29, 2015.

The facilities in question include: Chicago, Dearborn Truck, Kansas City, Kentucky Truck, Louisville, and Oakville; with the addition of Livonia Transmission, Sharonville Transmission, Rawsonville Transmission, Sterling Axle, Buffalo Stamping, Chicago Stamping, Dearborn Consolidated, Kansas City Stamping, Kentucky Stamping, and Woodhaven Stamping.

“To meet surging customer demand for our top-selling trucks and utilities, we are continuing to run our North American facilities during the traditional two-week summer shutdown in order to add close to 40,000 units,” declared Bruce Hettle, Ford vice president of North America Manufacturing. “Six of our assembly plants will build for an additional week in order to ensure we’re getting more of our vehicles into dealerships.”

Speaking of vehicles getting into dealerships, the 2015 Ford F-150 is turning in just 20 days on dealer lots. On the other hand, the Edge crossover spends 10 days on dealer lots. Escape inventories remain tight while the 2016 Ford Explorer just begun to hit US dealership lots.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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