Global Manufacturing Strategy Gives Ford Competitive Advantage “Ford Motor Company is the only automotive manufacturer executing a truly global powertrain strategy. Beginning with the launch of the new Ford F-150, we are building a network of flexible engine and transmission plants that can respond quickly to changing market needs, while improving quality and manufacturing efficiency. This is the most dramatic change in powertrain manufacturing since the introduction of the assembly line.” — Kevin Bennett, Director, Manufacturing Engineering, Powertrain Operations Under Ford Motor Company’s global powertrain strategy, next-generation engine plants worldwide will use a medium-sized production model of about 325,000 units annually, enhancing efficiency and allowing Ford to adapt quickly to changing market needs. Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1, re-opening in 2004, will be the first of these flexible engine plants in North America to come online. Flexible techniques are already being put into operation at other plants, such as the cylinder-head line at Windsor Engine Plant, which produces the new 5.4-liter, 3-valve Triton™ V-8. Manufacturing equipment and plant-floor layouts will be similar around the world, reducing capital-investment costs. Cross shipping of components between plants is possible, easing launch startups and helping speed products to market. Three main elements are at the core of Ford’s flexible manufacturing strategy for powertrains: common engine architectures; commonized manufacturing facilities; and modern, flexible, numerically controlled machine tools (CNC machines) that can be easily retooled and reprogrammed to perform new tasks with minimal disruption to production. This global powertrain program is a key component of Ford’s product-led strategy, said Dave Szczupak, vice president, Ford Powertrain Operations. “When you think about any great vehicle, it’s always got a great powertrain,” Szczupak said. “It’s the heart of the vehicle. What we’re doing now with our engine manufacturing will deliver more great new powertrains, more quickly, to our customers in the future.” Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 Launches Flexible Manufacturing Ford’s revitalized Cleveland (Ohio) Engine Plant No. 1 will build the Duratec V-6 engine for the all-new Ford Freestyle “crossover” vehicle, which will combine the attributes of Ford’s SUVs and family cars, and the new Ford Five Hundred sedan. The Freestyle and Five Hundred will go into production early in 2004, shortly after Cleveland Engine No. 1 re-opens as part of a $350-million upgrade. Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 was idled in 2000 when the company phased out its 5.0-liter cast-iron block V-8. The plant is set to reopen in late 2003. When it hits full annual production of 325,000 engines, it will employ 650 workers building the high-tech aluminum, double-overhead cam Duratec V-6, and will be the first Ford Motor Company engine facility to incorporate flexible manufacturing. The Freestyle and Ford Five Hundred fittingly will be built in a flexible body shop (at the Chicago Assembly Plant), which offers the same types of benefits as Ford’s new flexible engine plants, only at a vehicle assembly operation. Ford Engine Architectures Are the Building Blocks Ford’s new I-4 family represents a good example of the company’s approach to modularly designed engine architectures, and shows how a modern engine can be designed in advance to meet many needs.

Changes in cylinder bore and cylinder head configuration can produce more than 100 variants of the I-4, each suited to a specific vehicle’s characteristics. The 2.3-liter engine built at the Dearborn (Mich.) Engine Plant is optimized for low-speed torque for the Ford Ranger compact pickup. Another variation, optimized for quick acceleration and small-car performance feel, powers the new Mazda6 sedan. At the upper range, Ford’s modular V-8 and V-10 family of engines is well established. The modular engine family includes the 4.6-liter and 5.4-liter V-8 engines in both single- and dual-overhead-cam versions, as well as the 6.8-liter V-10. Built in both cast iron and all-aluminum versions, redesigned modular V-8 engines are being introduced this year for six new products: the all-new 2003 Lincoln Aviator, 2003 Lincoln Navigator, 2003 Mercury Marauder, 2003 Ford Mustang Cobra, 2003 Mustang Mach I and 2003 Ford Expedition. The newest addition to the V-8 modular family will be the 3-valve, 5.4-liter Triton Ford's new I-4 engine moves into a engine for the all-new Ford F-150 pickup. Standardized Facilities Maximize Best Practices, Reduce Costs

bay where a robot installs its dual-overhead camshafts.

Common plant layouts and manufacturing practices are key enablers for the flexible manufacturing strategy. Ford Motor Company is the only automotive manufacturer executing a truly global powertrain strategy, in which engine plants thousands of miles apart are getting the same floor plans – the same manufacturing machinery in the same layouts – in order to standardize production. “When we are finished, someone walking onto the plant floor will not be able to tell whether they are looking at an assembly line in Europe, Mexico or the United States,” said Kevin Bennett, who is director of Manufacturing Engineering, Ford Powertrain Operations, and is in charge of 60 cross-functional teams carrying out these improvements. “When our new flexible manufacturing process is completed, our engine plants at Cleveland, Ohio, and Dagenham and Bridgend in the United Kingdom will be nearly identical,” Bennett said. Ford’s new global I-4 engine, which just launched production, is being built at four plants globally, on three continents, and serves as a baseline for successive manufacturing programs. Commonality to this level of detail means that Ford’s engineers can apply best practices from previous installations to each new engine plant. Commonality also brings plant launches into full production much more quickly. One fully operational plant can help a new plant ramping up by supplying key components – crankshafts, cylinder heads or even personnel. The Windsor (Ontario) Engine Plant will support modernization at the Essex (Ontario) and Romeo (Michigan) Engine Plants in this way, allowing new products to be introduced more quickly. These changeover savings alone amount to up to 50 percent. These are the obvious advantages on the product side. A visit to the Windsor Engine Plant, which makes V-8 engines and has one of the new flexible manufacturing installations for cylinder heads, underscored to Bennett that there are significant advantages on the people side, as well. When necessary, engine plants can simply change over production with little or no downtime. Mike Vince, former plant chairman at Windsor and now vice-president of Canadian Auto Workers Local 200, said his members are embracing the new technology. “We’re extremely excited to be in the forefront of this,” Vince said. “We realize these are some of the most important engines the

company makes. We’re determined to make sure this goes off without a hitch – this is the future.” Rather than huge engine plants turning out a million or more units a year, the new strategy relies on flexible medium-sized production modules, each running at high capacity to produce approximately 325,000 engines per year. Uptime and productivity are both kept high under this model, and Ford is New computer-controlled able to quickly adapt to changing market demand. Computer-Controlled Machines Adapt to Demand Ford Motor Company’s newest flexible CNC machine-based processes can react quickly to changing production needs. The new CNC machining processes have been installed at the Windsor plant to manufacture cylinder heads. They also are scheduled for installation at Ford’s Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 and Dagenham and Bridgend engine plants in the UK, in late 2003.

(CNC) machines at Ford's Windsor Engine Plant can be quickly reprogrammed for new products.

Rather than requiring a complicated process of removing old-style dedicated milling or boring machines and installing new ones – which can interrupt production for months – the new machines can be retooled and reprogrammed internally, with little or no interruption in production. In many cases, this reprogramming can be accomplished over a weekend. New Database Improves Engine Quality During production, each engine builds a sophisticated “birth history” that allows plant engineers to track every stage of production – starting even before major components such as cylinder heads arrive at the engine plant. This birth history is recorded on a microchip that travels with the engine, or data is maintained in a database related to a bar code. Such data include hundreds of metrics, including torque levels for specific bolts; crank journal clearances; pressure test results; and the amount of torque it takes to turn the crankshaft after all parts are bolted together. Because parts are routed automatically to available machines along the production path, each assembly can take one of 1.24 million possible manufacturing paths, according to engineer John Pauli. The birth history allows engineers to trace the precise path taken by any part, so any quality control issue can be traced back to its source, and affected parts taken out of production. If engineers learn that a small run of bolts from a supplier was substandard, for example, it can track those bolts to the exact engines in which they were installed, and call for repairs on those individual vehicles, rather than issuing a broad recall, as was sometimes necessary in the past. “It’s not a needle in a haystack anymore,” said Sharon McCarthy, new programs leader at the Windsor cylinder-head operation. “This has potential to save thousands of unnecessary replacements, and spare customers considerable inconvenience.” Standardization Leads to Efficiencies At the Windsor cylinder-head facility, each production “module” has 43 CNC machines arranged in cells of up to six machines. Cell operators monitor production at a computer workstation. Another benefit of this standardization is that each operator knows how to run all of the machines – they’re all the same – and not only can step in to other roles, but can trade information, concerns and best practices with coworkers. These identical CNC machines can perform any of a number of functions, depending on need. That means diesel engine cylinder heads could be manufactured at the same time as two-valve or

multi-valve gasoline engine heads, and each type would route itself to the machine that was equipped with the proper tooling and programs. Since the machines are identical, Ford is able to dramatically reduce the number of spare parts kept on hand. The new plants typically have one set of shared common spares for each system, rather than each machine, which results in a huge inventory cost savings. Every new or reworked cutting tool is measured before it is put into service, and that measurement is recorded in its memory chip. The computer-controlled machine reads this data as it loads the tool, and automatically compensates for any minor variation in tool sizes. A laser in each CNC verifies tool length every time the tool is used in production. This assures that if the tool breaks or goes out of adjustment, the machine doesn’t continue to produce parts. “The degree of quality control that we’re getting is second-to-none,” Bennett said. “We are verifying the quality of build throughout the process. Faults can’t pass down the line. With this degree of integrity, we can target 100-percent right, first time.” 11/05/2002