Ford to add three new plants

Two years before it closes its Australian factories in 2016, Ford has announced it will open two new manufacturing facilities in the Asia Pacific region and another in South America next year.

The moves are part of what Ford claims will be its biggest ever year of new model launches, with 23 global product launches in 2014 (double the number held this year), including 16 in the US (triple this year’s number) claimed to give it “the freshest product line-up in the industry”.

They include the new Mustang and Transit – both of which have been confirmed for Australia – as well as the Transit Connect, Lincoln MKC and new Ford Edge, which is expected to replace the homegrown Territory here by 2016.

To support its ambitious growth strategy, Ford says it will add more than 6000 new jobs in Asia and 5000 new US jobs in 2014, in addition to the 14,000-plus new US positions it says it created in the past two years.

Ford is on track to open its third Changan Ford Assembly Plant and the Changan Transmission Plant at Chongqing in China next year, as well as the new Camaçari Engine Plant in Brazil.

The new Chongqing Assembly Plant will increase the company’s production capacity in China by 300,000 units next year.

Ford plans to hire more than 6000 workers in Asia next year, the vast majority of them hourly employees, while more than 5000 new US jobs will include 3300 salaried positions, representing the largest hiring initiative since 2000.

More than 80 per cent of the new salaried jobs will be technical professionals who work in product development, manufacturing, quality and IT, said Ford.

“This is the fastest and most aggressive manufacturing expansion the company has undergone in 50 years,” said John Fleming, Executive Vice-President, Ford Global Manufacturing.

“The last time Ford was growing like this, Dwight D Eisenhower was the US president.”

Ford sold its one millionth vehicle in the Asia Pacific – the world’s fastest growing sales region -- in October, thanks largely to the Focus, Kuga and new EcoSport.

“Our strategy in Asia Pacific is to serve our customers with even more One Ford products, and to increase our capacity to provide these great products with manufacturing hubs in China, India and ASEAN,” said Dave Schoch, Group Vice-President and President of Ford Asia Pacific.

“With more products, plants and people, in 2014 we will take another significant step in the implementation of our Asia Pacific growth plan.”

In addition, production of the all-new Transit will begin in the second quarter of 2014 at Ford’s newly retooled Kansas City Assembly Plant, where the company is investing $US1.1 billion to retool and expand the facility.

Kansas City Assembly Plant will add more than 2000 jobs – more than 1000 of which are new hires – to support high demand for the Ford F-150 and production of the new Transit.

Ford this week also confirmed it will introduce two new EcoBoost turbo-petrol engines, bringing the number of EcoBoost engines to six, as well as spreading a fuel-saving idle-stop function to 70 per cent of its model range.

Ford says it is on target to produce six million vehicles globally this year, at an average of about 16 vehicles per minute. The Focus – “world’s best-selling single nameplate” -- remains its top-seller and is on track to reach 1.1 million sales this year.

Ford has sold 80,000 hybrid models so far this year and plans to add more than 400 new positions to its powertrain engineering team -- including about 100 new hybrid and electrified vehicle engineers – in 2014.

Locally, it will close its Broadmeadows and Geelong plants by October 2016, killing the long-running Falcon nameplate and more than 90 years of manufacturing in Australia.

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