Ford to Resume Full Production of F-150 Trucks by May 21
Following fire at supply plant, F-150s will be back in showrooms much faster than predicted.
In a conference call with the press, Ford Motor Company revealed that it is ahead of schedule and that the Ford F-150 will be resuming production this week. The popular pickup will reportedly be back on its full production schedule by May 21 following the massive fire at Michigan’s Meridian Magnesium Products, which supplies parts for the F-150, on May 2.
“We have some very good news to share with you today,” said Joe Hinrichs, Ford president, Global Operations. “After just over one week of downtime, we will be re-starting production at our Dearborn truck plant this Friday, well ahead of our initial targeted timing. We have also successfully repaired the supply chain for our Super Duty trucks with production targeted to restart by Monday at our Kentucky truck plant…and we are planning to restart production at our Kansas City assembly plant on Monday, May 21.”
Ford will continue to focus on improving production moving forward, and smoothing any additional rough spots in the days and week ahead stemming from the fire and subsequent downtime.
“It took a tremendous effort to resume operations so quickly,” said Hau Thai-Tang, Ford’s Executive Vice President of Product Development and Purchasing. “While we hope to never experience these events, our whole supply chain risk management process is really designed to minimize the downtime…and as you can see, it really works.”
Ford was unable to estimate the number of vehicles that were not produced during this time, but plans to give updates in the future. But for now the news is all good, Ford is back. You can’t keep a good truck down.
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