Two left standing at Ford

Under the company's restructured Way Forward plan, Ford's Chicago Assembly plant will be one of only two plants in the country producing Ford's automobiles.

Chicago Assembly opened in 1924 and is the company's oldest operating facility worldwide.

"Chicago is in the immediate plans for Ford Motor Co.'s future," said a top manger at the plant, who asked not to be identified. "It's one of the plants they're figuring will help them recover. Chicago Assembly and the products it produces have an important role in the future of Ford Motor Co."

There are two main reasons for the survival of the plant, he said. In 2004, Ford invested more than $800 million in the plant and the nearby Chicago Manufacturing Campus. The assembly plant was retrofitted with a flexible manufacturing system that allows it to quickly and efficiently respond to customer demand.

"Flexible manufacturing is one of our big advantages," the manager said. "We can build eight body styles off two platforms. We're using one platform right now. We can use the other one to build a truck in our plant. Without flexible manufacturing, we likely would have been one of the plants on the list to be shut down. The ones being shut down are the ones that didn't get the flexible manufacturing."

The plant's other advantage is having the stamping plant and majority of the suppliers close by, he said. About nine of the plant's major suppliers are within the nearby Manufacturing Campus. Seats come from the Lear plant in Hammond. Steel for hoods and body panels are shipped from Northwest Indiana's mills to the Chicago Heights Stamping Plant and returned to the assembly plant less than 14 miles to the north.

"Eighty percent of our parts come from within 50 miles of us," the manager said.

The plant at 12600 Torrence Ave. currently builds the Ford 500, Ford Freestyle and Mercury Montego. The company recently announced the Chicago plant also will produce the Lincoln MKS sedan beginning with the 2008 model year. Although no production schedule has been published, plants normally begin building vehicles in late summer or early fall of the year preceding the model year.

Ford's Wayne, Mich., Assembly Plant also will continue building the Ford Focus, the manager said. The company will continue auto production at plants in Mexico and Canada.

The Way Forward plan, first announced in January, was an attempt to be competitive in the market where consumers had switched their allegiance to foreign company-owned brands. The automaker's large SUVs and trucks had lost their appeal in the gasoline crunch and high labor costs undermined its bottom line.

The plan was retooled in August after Ford's losses spiked to $1.4 billion for the first half of 2006.

Ford originally said it would close 14 plants -- including seven assembly plants -- and cut as many as 30,000 workers by 2012, including 4,000 salaried employees. It was Ford's second major North American restructuring in the past four years. Under the first plan, launched in January 2002, the company cut 35,000 jobs and closed five plants.

As part of the refined plan, Ford said it would accelerate and enlarge its previous proposal by adding four facilities to the list of closings, shut down the targeted plants years sooner than first proposed, cut an additional 10,000 salaried workers and offer buyouts to its 75,000-member union work force.

As part of the original plan, the company shuttered its St. Louis Assembly Plant in March and announced the October closing of its Atlanta Assembly Plant. The closing ceases production of Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable, which jump started the company's fortunes in the in the mid-1980s.

The automaker recently announced that in 2007 -- three years earlier than planned -- it will close the Wixon (Mich.) Assembly Plant where it builds Ford GTs and Lincoln Town Cars, its Twin Cities (Minn.) Assembly Plant, where it builds the Ranger, and its Norfolk (Va.) Assembly Plant, which builds Ford F-150.

The Way Forward revised plan calls for the closure of two other assembly plants, but neither has been named. In all, 16 of Ford's manufacturing facilities will cease operation under the strategy, the company said.