Confederação Nacional dos Metalúrgicos da CUT nº 10/01 english edition–October 02, 2001

Ford Will Try to Wow the World with New Plant in Brazil

Ford Motor Co. workers around the world will be watching closely Oct. 12 when the company's much-awaited Project Amazon opens in Brazil.

The plant in Camacari is Ford's boldest use yet of suppliers to assemble major modules of a car and deliver them just in time to an assembly line. Two dozen suppliers will prepare all the sub-assemblies, and some of them will work inside the flexible plant, which is designed to make five different models. Others will work in the adjoining supplier park.

On Sept. 15, Ford launched a publicity campaign in Brazil meant to reinforce the company image, according to the O Estado newspaper in Sao Paulo.

The blitz follows a poor sales month for Ford. Unit sales in Brazil were off 39.8 percent in August to 4,144 units, according to the Brazilian automakers association Anfavea. That put Ford's Brazilian sales behind those of Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen for the first time. Volkswagen, Fiat and General Motors Corp. continue to lead the market by a large margin, but the French companies have each opened new factories within the past year.

Brazil has a population of about 160 million, sixth largest in the world, and automakers expect the car market to grow much beyond the 1.5 million sold last year.

Ford is preparing a grand opening of its new factory in Bahia state in northeast Brazil on Oct. 12. A company spokeswoman said Ford did not want to talk about the plant before then, at least in part because of security concerns.

"I think their intention is to try to wow the world," said Garel Rhys, professor of motor industry economics at Cardiff Business School in Britain. Brazil has been the center of experiments in having suppliers more closely involved in vehicle assembly, including a Volkswagen truck plant in which the suppliers do all the assembly and VW just checks quality. Volkswagen opened that plant five years ago in Resende.

Ford reportedly has invested $1.2 billion in its project, and the suppliers $600 million.

The 700,000-square-foot plant, built on 320 acres of former rain forest, also gives Ford a chance to showcase its environmental efforts. "The theme was regeneration," said Diane Dale, the Amazon project manager for William McDonough Partners, architects based in Charlottesville, Va. The firm, which worked on Ford's project to revitalize the Rouge plant in Dearborn, developed the land-use plan for the Brazilian site.

"The Atlantic coastal rain forest has been decimated. The site that Ford acquired had been degraded by previous owners."

She said the topsoil had been stripped and the area had been mined for sand and gravel. "There was no vegetation. We looked at strategies to regenerate the area, to rebuild soils."

At first, Camacari will produce only the Ford Courier small pickup. Next spring Ford plans to begin production at Camacari of the first of five vehicles based on the new Ford Fiesta, a small car introduced in Europe at the Frankfurt, Germany, auto show.

Project Amazon cars are expected to be somewhat larger than the Fiesta and smaller than the Escort. The first vehicle will be a small minivan, according to reports published in Brazil. Other versions will likely be a hatchback, pickup, utility van and sport-utility. Most will be powered by 1.0-liter gas engines.

According to presentation at an engineering conference last year by Mario Sergio Salerno, a production engineering professor at University of Sao Paulo, Ford will have 13 suppliers inside the plant and 10 in the associated supplier park. He said suppliers would handle stamping, painting, seats, trim, plastic parts, fuel systems, axles, tire-wheel assembly, exhaust and front-end, lighting and cooling systems.

While the stamping operation will be run by a supplier, said Salerno, the paint shop will be owned by a supplier (Durr) but operated by Ford employees.

If the Camacari plant reaches its proposed capacity of 250,000 vehicles with 3,000 Ford employees, it will be at least as efficient Nissan's Smyrna, Tenn., plant, which according to the Harbour Report is the best in North America. Smyrna's 5,779 employees, including those in stamping, made 377,275 vehicles last year.

In the late 1990s, both GM and Ford began developing new small cars and new assembly methods for Brazil. GM's Blue Macaw project has resulted in the Celta, an inexpensive small car that is selling very well. GM's plant in Gravatai is also designed so that suppliers do much of the work. For example, doors are removed from the car after it has been painted, and they are given to Lear Corp. In their part of the plant, Lear workers attach windows, handles and other door elements, then deliver the doors back to GM. (BY WILLIAM DIEM)( Detroit Free Press September 28, 2001) of (permanent) layoffs.'' (Reuters, September 24, 2001)

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