350 millionth Ford rolls off assembly line

"Consider, for a moment, the enormity of 350 million vehicles," said John Fleming, Ford executive vice president of global manufacturing. "It’s equivalent to producing one vehicle every 10 seconds for 109 years; and, if placed end to end, would stretch to the moon and back – twice. It’s an incredible achievement and indicative of why we’re all excited about the future."

Ford is celebrating this production milestone at its newest global manufacturing facility located in Rayong. The Ford Thailand Manufacturing (FTM) plant, a US$450 million (Bt14.1 billion) facility, opened in May to produce the Ford Focus, the company’s best-selling vehicle in the world. FTM represents the latest in Ford’s global manufacturing capabilities, with new stamping presses, flexible body shops and robotic capabilities that enable it to produce up to six different vehicles simultaneously.

"Producing this vehicle for Ford in Thailand is more than a simple milestone," said Fleming. "It’s symbolic of our plan to generate growth by building great global products in ultra-flexible and efficient facilities, not just here in Thailand, but everywhere in the world."

As part of the One Ford vision, the company’s new One Manufacturing plan is furthering that global transformation by standardising best practices, increasing production in growing markets and accelerating new vehicle introductions on fewer global platforms, which delivers the vehicles consumers want with quality, efficiency and profitability afforded by global scale.

By next year, Ford’s One Manufacturing plan will generate more than 85 per cent of vehicle volume off nine core platforms, while continuing new product introductions at an unprecedented rate. In the next four years, Ford will have the freshest global vehicle line-up in the world, with 168 per cent of the product portfolio expected to change with new or major updates through 2016.

As global automotive demand increases, Ford is planning to use this approach to expand its worldwide sales by approximately 50 per cent to 8 million vehicles by mid-decade – led largely by Asia – which may account for one third or more of the company’s sales in the next few years. As part of the One Ford plan, Asia Pacific Africa regional markets like Thailand – symbolic of Ford’s global expansion with today’s historic celebration – are leading the way for future growth and creating geographically balanced performance for Ford.

With $6.7 billion invested in the region since 2006, Ford is investing heavily and expanding aggressively to meet the needs of consumers here, who are expected to generate 60 per cent of the industry’s future growth through 2020. Ford’s key investments and growth initiatives in Asia Pacific Africa include launching nine new plants – six in China, two in India and one in Thailand – with the capacity to produce 2.9 million vehicles by mid-decade, bringing more than 50 new vehicles and powertrains to market by mid-decade, including 15 vehicles to China by 2015, eight vehicles to India by 2015, eight vehicles to Asean and four vehicles to Taiwan.