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News Release from: Stadco
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 21 October 2003
Remainder of Body Systems Brazil sold to
Ford
Stadco, together with its partner Polynorm, has announced the sale to Ford of their remaining 30 per cent share in Body Systems Brazil
Stadco, together with its partner Polynorm, has announced the sale to Ford of their remaining 30 per cent share in Body Systems Brazil (BSB), a joint venture business that was established together with Ford to plan, set up and operate a state-of-the-art press shop and body shop facility at the carmaker's new manufacturing plant located at Cama?ari in the far Northeast of Brazil The sale follows the successful launch of the now fully operational car plant and will see the transfer of management responsibility to Ford for the day-to-day operation of the business
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 6 Feb 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The timely completion of this project highlights Stadco's experience and capability of working closely with partners and vehicle manufacturers all the way from the initial development of the project business plan right through to the successful launch of volume production.
In addition, as part of the sale Stadco has agreed to provide ongoing technical support to ensure a smooth handover to Ford.
Stadco, together with its partner Polynorm, was first invited by Ford in the late 1990s to join a group of other leading Tier 1 suppliers to help develop and operate one of the world's most efficient car production facilities in the strategically important South American market.
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With Polynorm taking responsibility for the set up of the US$35 million press shop facility, Stadco was able to focus on the planning of the body shop facility, which manufactures major body sub-assemblies together with all the closure assemblies for the complete model range.
Applying its project management and engineering expertise Stadco oversaw the investment of over US$ 85 million in new manufacturing processes and production equipment to ensure the success of the programme, thereby underlining the company's commitment of working in partnership with a leading carmaker.
Commenting on the particular challenges of this project, Paul Meeson, Stadco Programme Director, said: "Cama?ari's remote location approximately 2,000km away from the centre of Brazil's established automotive industry, and the absence of a local skilled workforce, posed interesting challenges before construction of the new plant could even begin.
We even had to design our own internet based software package to help ensure smooth communication between the joint venture partners who were located across three continents." Working closely with Ford and Polynorm, Stadco's main responsibility was the project management, planning, engineering and procurement of the production equipment located within the Ford body shop together with the recruitment and training of the local workforce.
Mr Meeson continued: "The project benefited from our extensive knowledge and experience of body shop operations.
For example we introduced new manufacturing processes such as our 'Flex Production System', which allows Ford to change over production to a different model within the planned cycle time of 65 seconds.
In addition our quality control planning, which includes the ultrasonic testing of welds together with the fully automatic inspection of assemblies using one of South America's most advanced co-ordinate measuring machines, enabled us to exceed Ford's quality expectations." "Our significant investments have provided for a high level of automation with over 110 robots in the body shop applying almost 1,000 spot welds and 40 metres of sealer to every vehicle built.
In planning this level of automation we have been able to achieve our programme targets of output capacity, flexibility and productivity as well as making a major contribution to our ability to maintain high quality standards." Since the first car rolled off the line in 2001, the Cama?ari Plant has become one of Ford's most efficient production sites in the world with a capacity of 250,000 cars a year.
The facility has also become a showpiece for Ford's new sequenced modular assembly concept, in which Tier 1 suppliers, such as Stadco, are co-located on site and produce, pre-assemble and deliver high level modules directly to the point of fit on the main production line.
Mr Meeson concludes: "We are delighted with the success of this programme and are pleased to be handing over a world-class production facility to Ford.
We look forward to applying the experience gained on this programme on similar projects around the world." Meanwhile, in Europe Stadco has just acquired a major production facility that supplies Ford Saarlouis in Germany.
In addition to working in partnership with the carmaker to manufacture body-in-white sub-assemblies for the current Ford Focus, Stadco is currently undertaking a major investment programme at the site in order to gear up for the production of Ford's next generation Focus, the first of which, the Focus C-MAX, commenced series production just a few weeks ago.
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