The last F-150 has left the building. According to the Detroit Free Press, the final steel-bodied F-150 rolled off the line at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant around 1:30 a.m. last Saturday. While Ford’s Kansas City facility will continue to manufacture steel-bodied F-150s until the end of the year, the line in Dearborn is being dismantled to make room for the new tooling and equipment required to produce aluminum-bodied trucks for the 2015 model year.
The Dearborn plant will be closed until mid-September, putting about 3000 workers on temporary layoff. Employees will be called back in tiers, with two crews returning on September 21 and a third on October 20. Starting initially with preproduction models, the plant is scheduled to return to full speed before January.
As Ford’s F-150 is a veritable profit center on wheels, the company’s decision to switch its venerated pickup truck to aluminum is not without risk. Ford sold 63,240 F-150s in the U.S. in July, the last full month of production before the $359-million switchover began. In order to keep the cash flowing, Ford needs to expedite the switch but without sacrificing quality.
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Although Ford’s 3000 or so U.S. dealers are slated to begin receiving 2015 F-150s by the end of the year, Automotive News is citing a letter to Ford dealers signed by distribution planning manager Kevin Giacomini as well as allocation and commodity manager John Bradley that indicates fleet customers and special orders may have to wait until February of 2015 to take delivery: “We understand the desire to get the customer units as quickly as possible, but do not want to compromise our commitment to quality for the sake of a few additional weeks of delivery.” Clearly, Ford is hedging its bets and erring on the side of caution as far as the delivery timetable is concerned. Tempting the hand of fate, Bruce Hettle, Ford’s head of North American manufacturing, has gone on the record stating, “There is nothing we see on the horizon to preclude us from launching on time.” Words to remember.
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