Ford will shut one F-150 line for a week over mechanical issues

[Biker16]

 

Ford will shut one F-150 line for a week over mechanical issues

April 28, 2016 @ 3:15 pm

Nick BunkleyTwitter RSS feed

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http://www.autonews.com/article/20160428/OEM01/160429817/ford-will-shut-one-f-150-line-for-a-week-over-mechanical-issues

Workers who build the F-150 at Ford's Kansas City Assembly Plant will be on layoff the week of May 9.

UPDATED: 4/28/16 4:39 pm ET - adds details

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. is idling its F-150 assembly line in Missouri for one week in May to address mechanical issues that had been hindering the plant's output. The temporary shutdown comes as F-series inventory reaches its highest level in nearly a decade.

Workers who build the F-150 at Ford’s Kansas City Assembly Plant will be on layoff the week of May 9 before returning May 16, UAW Local 249 told members on its website and Facebook page. Ford confirmed the scheduled downtime, which does not affect production of the Transit full-size van, to Automotive News, saying it pulled ahead some maintenance that it had planned to do in the fall.

“We took a look at our inventory levels on F-150 and said we can afford to do that now,” Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of the Americas, said in an interview. “We wa

 

[BORG]

This is also as good time to reduce some of the bloated stock on the F-150 which is at around 105 days.

[jpd80]

This is also as good time to reduce some of the bloated stock on the F-150 which is at around 105 days.

Let's see how "bloated" those numbers are this summer, I have a hunch that forward loading 165K F Series

with dealers spells some big sales coming, especially when 123K of them are F-150s.

 

There's still some late fleet/commercial sales this quarter as well as retail sales coming to life

and al lot of those will be walk in buyers. Let's hope that Ford sell every one of them a new truck.

Edited April 29, 2016 by jpd80

[JasonM]

This is also as good time to reduce some of the bloated stock on the F-150 which is at around 105 days.

 

A knee jerk negative response will often lead to an uninformed and incorrect conclusion.

 

"Most of that extra (105 day) inventory is of the larger Super Duty version of the F-Series that Ford is redesigning and re-introducing this fall. The automaker is very comfortable with where we are on F-150 supply, Hinrichs said."

 

Why would Ford not build extra supply of the Super Duty when the plant is going to switch over to the aluminum 2017 in two months?

 

I think even the most casual observer would agree that it's prudent to have extra supply going into a major plant switchover.

Edited May 1, 2016 by JasonM