Ford Motor Co.'s (Dearborn, MI) production center in Cuautitlan, Mexico, produces between 300,000 and 400,000 cars and trucks each year. It uses modern production approaches such as just-in-time-supply and is one of the company's largest foreign assembly plants.
In the past, Ford used a manual coding system to track auto and truck frames as they went through the final assembly, paint and body shop areas of the production line. However, the system was prone to error. Paper identification sheets were continually being lost, switched and ruined, making quality control difficult.