Suppliers Play a Key Role Behind Ford MAP’s Success

Assemblers at Ford Motor Co.’s Michigan Assembly Plant (MAP) build four versions of the popular Ford Focus compact sedan. The vehicle is the first product produced under the new One Ford plan to leverage the company’s global assets. It is engineered, designed and sourced globally.

“Suppliers are critical to the success of the Focus,” says Tony Brown, group vice president of Ford Global Purchasing.

At MAP, more than 560 parts are imported from more than 20 countries, including China, Germany, Korea and Mexico. The 2012 Assembly Plant of the Year receives 265 sea containers every week from suppliers in Europe, Asia and South Korea. In addition, suppliers in Canada and the United States provide a steady stream of components.

The Focus, which is part of Ford’s new global C-car platform, also sets new benchmarks for supplier component commonality. Eighty percent of the car’s parts and components are common around the world.

Three-quarters of the supply base for the Focus is the same at the five plants where the vehicle is built (in addition to MAP, the vehicle is assembled in Chongqing, China; Saarlouis, Germany; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Rayong, Thailand).

“The Focus raises the bar in terms of common parts and global processes that will pay off with higher quality and lower costs,” says Brown. “It also represents a new era in how we work with our supply base. The high level of communication, early information sharing and data transparency between Ford and our supply base is paying off.”

Key suppliers to the Ford Focus include:
*Robert Bosch LLC (control units, fuel rail assemblies, high pressure pumps, sensors, throttle body assemblies, fuel delivery modules, engine cooling modules, alternators, front and rear wiper systems, airbag control devices, multi-functional displays, and DC-DC converters).
*Continental (brake components, engine control parts, cameras for lane departure warning and lane keeping assist, high-beam controls, traffic sign recognition systems, short-range lidar sensors for emergency braking for city areas, door control units, access control systems, tires, hoses, axle boots and steering gaiters).
*Faurecia (instrument panels, consoles, door panel parts and hot-end emissions control components.
*Johnson Controls (seat systems and instrument clusters).
Lear Corp. (wiring, body control modules, terminals and connectors).
*TRW Automotive (electric power-assisted steering systems)
*Tenneco (cold-end emission control systems, resonators, underbody converters, catalysts, diesel particulate filters, and front and rear shock absorbers).
*Visteon Corp. (climate, electronics, interior and lighting components).

A number of smaller suppliers also provide components that are used at the 2012 Assembly Plant of the Year, including Flex-N-Gate (a supplier of fascias with a plant in Evart, MI); Inergy (it produces fuel tanks at a facility in Adrian, MI); and Piston Automotive (it builds cooling module assemblies at a plant in Redford, MI).

Austin has been senior editor for ASSEMBLY Magazine since September 1999. He has more than 21 years of b-to-b publishing experience and has written about a wide variety of manufacturing and engineering topics. Austin is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

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