Ford Getting Ready For An Important New Truck [VIDEO]
DEARBORN (WWJ) - This is "truck week" at Ford's Rouge Complex — but that has nothing to do with any incentives. A big project is underway to move old equipment out and new equipment in to the Dearborn Truck Plant.
"We'll see about 1,100 trucks in the next five days delivering the state of the art equipment that's going into the body shop," said Assistant Plant Manager Brian Kinnie.
The move-in is the first part of an eight week project that will install a new body shop to prepare the way for production of an all new F-150 pickup truck.
Kinnie took journalists, including WWJ AutoBeat Reporter Jeff Gilbert to the roof of the Rouge Visitor Center, to see the trucks move in and out. Journalists were not allowed inside the plant for liability reasons.
"The extensive part of the logistics is down to the day, to the hour, to the truck," says Kinnie.
Ford built the final 2014 F-150 at the plant last Friday night. That began the process that is expected to take it until mid-October.
When Dearborn Truck re-opens, Ford will slowly gear up production of the new truck, which the company expects to go on sale by the end of the year.
Ford has been stockpiling 2014 trucks to prepare for the model changeover. The company's Kansas City plant is still building the 2014 truck. It will change over to the new model after the Dearborn Truck project is finished.
"To decommission an entire body shop and launch it in an eight week period of time...we started the planning back in 2012. We're on schedule."