Ford Goal To 500,000 plan
By Marvin Ranaldson
It has become Apparent in most circles that Ford motor
company has forgotten the Car market. It is most apparent in it's small
Cars/car. The Focus and Civic are good products there is no doubt about that,
but they aren't enough.
GM leads the small car market with ~550,000 units.
Toyota is next with ~500,000.
With Honda and ford 3 and 4 at less than 300,000.
Ford and Honda have one thing in common they only have one horse the civic and
the Focus. GM and Toyota have five small Cars. GM and Toyota have almost
50% if the small car market, Toyota is gaining market share At Ford’s expense.
Much like the rest of Toyota’s Car lineup they have multiple models competing
in the same class, filling every niche, this explains why ford is number 3,
behind Toyota, they have reduced the number of models, while Toyota has not.
Even GM is placing multiple irons in the Fire, with the Cobalt, Aveo, HHR,
Saturn S, and Vibe, as a whole GM will make money on small cars, they have
spread the risk around.
2 things to remember
1) Small cars are 2.1 million units of the US market.
2) If viewed as a Whole market It can be profitable, but not if you only have
one car covering the entire Class. Niches are profitable, and should be
exploited.
The small car market is becoming dominated by the hatchback/CUV.
Both Ford and Honda have to Focus on the entire market and diversify thier
entries.
Small car development plan.
2 platforms
C1 platform models
B1 Global Platform
The Focus is on the Cars.
Fiesta, Focus, Capri, C-max, and Fusion
Cars volumes
Total car 480,000
Light-truck volume
Truck Total
255,000
Total platform volumes
735,000 units.
Modular assembly plants.
Ideal plant for Car is Wayne assembly at 3 shifts or 3 crew work patterns.
Capacity 450,000
Ideal plant for C1 truck KCAP, Escape line 3 crew or 3 shift.
Capacity 300,000 C1 truck
Total C1 volume
570,000
Total B1 volume
165,000
The goal of this program is to best leverage the Economies to reduce costs and increase profits.
Do 3 things
Common Flexible Assembly systems
High volume, maximum flexibility, lower costs.
Design Common layouts for all plants increase take time and shorter assembly lines better able to produce variations in product. Common suppliers for all models, use of common components whenever possible. ILVS, JITDS, and lean production are to be embraced and taken to a higher level to enable profitability of Fiesta, and increase profitability of other models.
Wayne would have 3 modular lines while KCAP would have 2 modular lines.
Each line would be interchangeable but be optimized to produce whatever is needed at the time.
Each line would make about 208 cars per shift, that = 50,000 per shift per year. Of course you can reduce production of each line without affecting the other areas of assembly, you can retool a line without affecting other areas of assembly.
A more conventional body and paint shops would be shared with attached stamping.
KCAP would specialize in Escape and mariner, along with other AWD C1 models.
Wayne would be the primary source of niche models like the KA, Capri, and Bronco, and would be ready to make specialty variants of the Focus, or fiesta, on short notice and with minimal investments in new tooling.
Higher margin niche models to supplement Volume models.
Volume models would represent 72% of production but average less than half the profit of the other 28% premium niche models. 44% of the profit would come from the niche non-conventional markets. This also means that the volume models have to make money too. You can spread the Burden over a more vehicles and spread the risk over more models.
Joint development program for all models, leverage component sharing.
Form the beginning you must try to reduce the number of different part and the number o sources for those parts. You start in the beginning designing all variants to share as many parts as possible. There isn’t any reason why they can’t share Electrical architectures, braking systems. Transaxles, AWD systems, Seatbelts, airbags, engines, wheels, seats, knobs, buttons, bulbs, radios, Speakers, air filters, nuts, bolts, door handles, locking mechanisms, power window motors, wipers.
If you can’t share a part share the philosophy for that part. They should work similar to each other and be assembled similarly. If they can’t share parts or architecture let the flexible assembly process work it out, as a last resort.
It should be possible to source different interiors for different Cars form the same suppliers. They should be delivered Just in Time and in sequence, for a Fair price. During development the Tier 1 vendor should be encouraged to be as flexible as the assembly plants, and plan to keep up with the Demands of the plant.
This plan would allow Ford Motor Company to Gain market share and become the #1 producer of small cars in the US and to do so profitably.
Estimated investment plants $1 billion
Development Costs of 8 new vehicles 1.2-1.5 billion
5 years of production @ 735,000 per year = 3,675,000 units
Total cost of investment $2.5 billion
Estimated investment cost per vehicle after 5 years, $680.30
Both C1 and B1 are global platforms, developed by other companies. The basic Design work for the Focus, C-max, Fiesta, KA and Fusion would be competed by Ford of Europe. Ford NA would have to Americanize these vehicles for this market, allow for greater part commonality than in the foreign versions.
Ford N.A. would be solely responsible for developing the Escape, Bronco, and Mariner off of C1 and B1.
It will work.
Numbers
Engines
Cleveland 2.5, 3.0, 3.5
Lima 3.5 V6
Dearborn Global I4, TDCi I4
Mexico Global I4
Transaxles
Batavia CVT
France MTX-75
Brazil IB5
France MMT6
Transmission
8% MTX-75 20,800
87% CVT 226,000
5% MMT6 13,000 performance variants
Engine
58% Duratec 2.0 150,800 150hp
30% Duratec 2.3 78,000 170hp
7% diesel PSA 2.0 TDCi 18,200 135hp
AWD
7%AWD 18,200
Transmissions
10% IB5 5,000
90% CVT 45,000
Engine
100% Duratec 1.8 110hp
Transmissions
18% IB5 5,400
82% CVT 24,600
Engine
Duratec 1.8 110hp
Transmissions
100% CVT
Engine
100% duratec 2.0 150hp
AWD Hybrid Electric AWD.
30% AWD 15,000
Transmissions
90% CVT 45,000
10% MMT6 5,000
Engines
75% Duratec 2.3 170hp 37,500
25% diesel 2.0 TDCI 135hp 12,500
AWD
25% AWD 12,500
Transmissions
80% CVT 28,000
20% MMT6 7,000
Engines
65% Duratec 2.0 150hp 22,750
35% Diesel 2.0 TDCi 135hp 12,250
4WD
100% 4WD 35,000
Transmissions
30% MMT6 12,000
70% CVT 28,000
Engines
75% Duratec 2.0 turbo 170hp 30,000
25% Duratec 2.3 turbo 250hp 10,000
AWD
30% AWD 12,000
Transaxles
82% CVT 139,400
8% MTX-75 13,600
5% hybrid drive 8,500
5% ATX6 8,500
Engines
10% Diesel 2.0 TDCi 135hp 17,000
50% Duratec 2.3 170hp 85,000
30% Duratec 3.0 220hp 51,000
5% hybrid drive 8,500
5% Duratec 3.5 250hp 8,500
4WD
58% 4WD 98,600
Mariner 50,000
Transmissions
100% CVT 50,000
Engine
30% Duratec 2.3 170hp 15,000
70% Duratec 3.0 220hp 35,000
AWD
100% AWD 50,000
Transaxles
4.7% MTX75 34,400
5% MMT6 37,000
1.4% IB5 10,400
86.5% CVT 636,000
1.2% ATX6 8,500
1.2% Hybrid Drive 8,500
Engines
77.8% Global Duratec I4s 572,050
11.7% Duratec 3.0 86,000
1.2% Duratec 3.5 8,500
8.2% TDCi 59,950
1.2% Hybrid drive 8,500
C1 AWD/4WD
18.2% AWD 42,700
71.8% 4WD 191,300
Total 234,000 AWD/4WD units
B1 AWD/4WD
33.3% AWD 15,000
66.7% 4WD 35,000
Total 45,000
Total AWD/4WD
279,000
Cars volumes
Total car 480,000
Light-truck volume
Truck Total
255,000
Total platform volumes
735,000 units.