Ford spared worst of Thai floods
'One Ford' program provides greater flexibility of OE parts supply in wake of natural disasterNatural disasters in Japan and Thailand last year called into question the original equipment parts supply regime formulated by some of the companies affected.
Principally the problem lay with second, third or fourth-tier suppliers entered into lax supply contracts with tier-one suppliers in turn contracted to the vehicle assemblers. Toyota was the worst affected by the earthquake and tsunami that took place in Japan during March last year. Single-point sensitivity for the supply of certain parts manufactured in northern Japan halted Camry production in all eight of the company's factories around the world.
The Japanese disasters prompted some to ask what measures companies such as Toyota might take to sidestep such problems in future. Just months later, massive flooding in Thailand also interrupted vehicle production in that country, heightening the calls for car companies and their parts suppliers to get smarter about disaster recovery.
In India for the reveal of the new Ford EcoSport, motoring.com.au spoke with David Filipe, Assistant Vehicle Line Director for B cars in Asia. Filipe, discussing the company's rationalisation strategy, 'One Ford', mentioned that it had already saved the manufacturer's Thai production base for the Fiesta (AAT) from falling foul of the floods the way Honda's manufacturing plant in Thailand did.
"We were able to quickly restart production; our Ford facility was not directly impacted by those floods, but our supply base at the time was," Filipe said. "The only reason we were able to turn the Fiesta [production line] on... we were about two weeks faster, because we leveraged parts available elsewhere in the world...
"Like anything else, we had to make sure we did the right validation... but because of that existence or availability of those parts globally — and we were bringing in parts from China and Europe — that production started back up [sooner].
"Part of the One Ford strategy is limiting the number of supplier partners, but we'll have the same supplier partner with a footprint matching our footprint — so we can share the economies of scale with them."
And also introducing the safety of multiple redundancy in the supply of parts…
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