Changan Ford – a 50:50 joint venture in China between Ford Motor Company and Changan Automobile – has received its fair share of accolades in recent history, with one of its facilities – the Changan Ford Hangzhou plant – just celebrating the fact that it has built 800,000 vehicles since it began operating years ago. Now, Changan Ford has teamed up with Ford Mexico as those two entities work to improve the production process even further.
Around 40 representatives from Changan Ford and Ford Mexico met across two days at the former’s Chongqing plant in China to discuss production insights, as well as tour that particular facility. There, Xu Binghua, the factory manager at the plant, gave visitors an overview of its capacity optimization, production layout, supplier distribution, and personnel structure, diving into the technological highlights of each workshop and its high automation level, flexible line design, and advanced painting technology.
Following that tour, the Ford Mexico team shared their own thoughts on some potential opportunities for improvement that they identified during the walkthrough process, and also discussed the differences between their Mexican factories and CAF, providing a fresh perspective as both entities work to further streamline the vehicle production process. Additionally, the Changan Ford team plans to visit the Cuautitlan Assembly plant in Mexico and gain insights from that facility that it can use moving forward, too.
Since 2015, Changan Ford’s Hangzhou plant has focused on building six mid-to-high-end models that include the Ford Edge, Ford Taurus, Ford Explorer, and Ford Edge L, with every step of the automaking process taking place there – from stamping and welding to painting and final assembly – which isn’t incredibly common in the automotive world, where multiple plants are usually employed to complete those tasks.
We’ll have more on this collaborative effort soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for 24/7 Ford news coverage.
No Comments yet