Ford Partial Restart of Production

[P. A. Schilke]

Hi Folks,

From my retiree news letter

The following statement may be attributed to Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s president of North America:


Ford is aiming to restart production at select plants in North America as early as April 6, bringing key plants back online while the company introduces additional safety measures to protect returning workers.


Ford is planning to resume production at Hermosillo Assembly Plant on April 6 on one shift. On April 14, Ford is planning to start building vehicles at Dearborn Truck Plant, Kentucky Truck Plant, Kansas City Assembly Plant’s Transit line and Ohio Assembly Plant.


To support these assembly plants, Ford also is aiming to resume production April 14 at:


· Dearborn Stamping Plant


· Dearborn Diversified Manufacturing Plant


· Integrated stamping plants within Kansas City and Kentucky Truck plants


· Sharonville Transmission Plant


· Portions of Van Dyke Transmission, Lima Engine and Rawsonville Components plants


We will continue to assess public health conditions as well as supplier readiness and will adjust plans if necessary.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

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[Rviator]

Phil, I see where Ford is teamed with GE to make ventilators. I assume Ford has the excess plant capacity and GE will bring in the know how? Making ventilators is quite a bit different from building Rangers. Do you know where the excess plant capacity is?
So glad that it was GM not Ford that forced the President to use the DPA.

 

[07XLT]

Phil, I see where Ford is teamed with GE to make ventilators. I assume Ford has the excess plant capacity and GE will bring in the know how? Making ventilators is quite a bit different from building Rangers. Do you know where the excess plant capacity is?
So glad that it was GM not Ford that forced the President to use the DPA.

I'm curious how they just spawn up production of that stuff all of a sudden as well. My day job has me involved in the back end stuff like that so if my company had a need like that i'd be involved in figuring out how to make that happen. Behind the scenes stuff like that fascinates me

 

[dmeyer302]

I'm curious how they just spawn up production of that stuff all of a sudden as well. My day job has me involved in the back end stuff like that so if my company had a need like that i'd be involved in figuring out how to make that happen. Behind the scenes stuff like that fascinates me

Same here, we've been discussing the possibility of making some masks, since we make a different product with a similar material. But by the time we got all tooled up this whole thing will have blown completely over. Plus something like masks has a ton of regulations/certs associated with it. I hope they drop the idea.

 

[RedlandRanger]

From what I read they are kind of making "franken ventilators" using off the shelf parts to get it going quickly and using the 3D printing labs that Ford has to produce certain parts. One of the parts was the fan assembly from an F-150 cooled seat assembly and another was a battery from some power tool. It really sounded interesting and I'd love to know more details.

Sounds a lot like industry response during WWII - the most interesting one I heard was that Maytag (who makes appliances) started making engines for planes during WWII.

It does kind of show that this pandemic is kind of a war of its own.

 

[07XLT]

Great points Redland and dmeyer. Easy to say 'I demand you make ventilators quickly!' Quite another to magically make it happen.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

Hi Folks,

There are good questions here. Ford has an amazing capability in the area of Rapid Prototyping and when ramped up can make production parts such as needed to keep a plant running, maybe at reduced line speed for example. This capability was greatly enhanced when we could also do more than plastic parts using metal beads and producing metal parts as well. In this case with the ventilators, Ford started with the F150 blower motor and thanks to rapid prototyping could "design" other parts on high end workstations in short order. Feed the designs to 3D printers and Voila! a ventilator...Elegant, probably not...functional..yep. Now how much throughput....depends on the number of steps, printers etc. But to move forward at a fast pace requires dedication and direction from outside...but pulling together the resources of Ford can be used. No need to use the Assembly plants...maybe the workers rededicated to new operations, but most plants can remain idled for the most part...but you have to remember that each plant has a machine shop capable of producing amazing parts to support production and can be tapped for other needs than producing cars. Now I have been out of the arena for quite some time and I am sure Ford has moved forward in what they have for capability.

I am proud Ford stepped up to help voluntarily. How embarrassing for GM... Where is FCA? supporting Italy? Where is Toyota? Japan is not an issue.... Bet behind the scenes, the auto suppliers are in the game as well as providing resources and know how to GET THE JOB UP and RUNNING.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

 

[Mokume]

Hi Folks,

There are good questions here. Ford has an amazing capability in the area of Rapid Prototyping and when ramped up can make production parts such as needed to keep a plant running, maybe at reduced line speed for example. This capability was greatly enhanced when we could also do more than plastic parts using metal beads and producing metal parts as well. In this case with the ventilators, Ford started with the F150 blower motor and thanks to rapid prototyping could "design" other parts on high end workstations in short order. Feed the designs to 3D printers and Voila! a ventilator...Elegant, probably not...functional..yep. Now how much throughput....depends on the number of steps, printers etc. But to move forward at a fast pace requires dedication and direction from outside...but pulling together the resources of Ford can be used. No need to use the Assembly plants...maybe the workers rededicated to new operations, but most plants can remain idled for the most part...but you have to remember that each plant has a machine shop capable of producing amazing parts to support production and can be tapped for other needs than producing cars. Now I have been out of the arena for quite some time and I am sure Ford has moved forward in what they have for capability.

I am proud Ford stepped up to help voluntarily. How embarrassing for GM... Where is FCA? supporting Italy? Where is Toyota? Japan is not an issue.... Bet behind the scenes, the auto suppliers are in the game as well as providing resources and know how to GET THE JOB UP and RUNNING.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

I was totally unaware that Ford volunteered their vast resources with this pandemic, like you said Phil where's GM, FCA and Toyota?

That's right Silverado, Sierra, Colorado, Canyon, Ram, Jeep and Tundra/Tacoma guys, I drive a FORD and I am damn proud of it..!??????

 

[RedlandRanger]

Saw this on the blue oval forums which gives a few more details on the respirators:

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a31917145/ford-respirators-coronavirus-covid-19/

 

[P. A. Schilke]

Saw this on the blue oval forums which gives a few more details on the respirators:

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a31917145/ford-respirators-coronavirus-covid-19/

Hi Rob,

Thanks...I saw this last night but was unable to copy it...linking is better. There is also a video out there on Ford's efforts with the masks.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

 

[RedlandRanger]

Hi Rob,

Thanks...I saw this last night but was unable to copy it...linking is better. There is also a video out there on Ford's efforts with the masks.

Phil, the video didn't seem to come thru (at least not for me).

 

[P. A. Schilke]

Phil, the video didn't seem to come thru (at least not for me).

Hi Rob,

Yeah....It appears it is somehow opening the URL and I was hoping it was a click on link. How do I make the link clickable? I have long ago forgotten UBB code from my days of being a moderator and administrator for a series of clock an watch forums.

Thanks!
Phil

 

[RedlandRanger]

To be honest, I'm not sure. My guess is the forum software is trying to embed the video. You could try embedding it within a quote to see what happens:

 

[rang19ca]

The video is working for me. Maybe you already got it running ? I am very proud of Ford for stepping up on this.

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