Rip F-150 - Ford Halts all production of F-Series Trucks - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/09/ford-will-halt-all-production-of-its-popular-f-series-pickup.html With key components about to run out, Ford is pulling the plug on production of its most profitable and popular model, the F-150, late Wednesday evening. The move means approximately 4,000 workers at Ford's Dearborn Truck Plant will be temporarily laid off, joining roughly 3,600 workers at Ford's truck plant in Kansas City who were told to stay home earlier this week. "I think it's safe to say, we're going to see an impact over several days, but beyond that we can't say," said Joe Hinrichs, president of Ford global operations. "We will be down through the end of the week." Both assembly plants are unable to continue building the F-150 pickup truck because of a lack of critical components supplied by Meridian Lightweight Technologies. An explosion and fire at Meridian's facility in Easton Rapids, Michigan, last Wednesday completely knocked out production of components used in the instrument panel of the F-150. The components shortage has also prompted Ford to stop production of the F-Series Super Duty pickup at its production plant in Louisville, Kentucky.

This sounds like it's not gone forever, I hope. F150 is undeniably an icon.

You can hear the roar of a thousand small engineering firms scrambling to start producing that part in the distance

it says right there it's temporary

the workers will be temporarily laid off, didnt say anything about the truck model esp how the article goes into detail about how the market value of ford massively depends on the f150

Theirs no question its coming back, it would be like walking away from a gold mine because the equipment broke.

article says they sold 73 thousand last month and still have an inventory of ~250 thousand, tho idk how much they can legally get away with inflating that number. but if it keeps the dealers stocked, wouldn't that (+ the fact they still hold on to the most popular truck in america) be more than enough til they find replacements?

Yeah it's not like they cancelled it, which the title implies. It's just suspended because they ran out of parts. One of the factory's that supply them blew up.

I figured a company as large as Ford would've had supplier redundancies for everything. Being able to knock out the entire production line from one supplier issue is absurd. Redundancies are like the first thing they teach you in supply chain management.

Plus it’s the supplier for the instrument gauge. Seeing as it’s only for the F series, couldn’t they pull the gauge system designs and have the Explorer gauge supplier do them? i know there are contracts for this sort of thing and this would be in breach, but this shouldn’t be impossible.

It would take too long and be too expensive for the other supplier to tool up and start manufacturing them when they're expecting the original supplier to be back in business within a few weeks.

They said production would cease for at least a week. I don't know how easy you think it is to fabricate lightweight magnesium parts but it's not something you necessarily have a backup supplier for. “This is a fluid situation, but we are working closely with our supplier partners to do everything we can to limit the impact on our production,” said Joe Hinrichs, executive vice president and president, Global Operations. “It’s a full team effort and we’re confident that any impacts will be short term.”

This is going to ruin the Texas Economy. All we do in our free time is buy new F-150s.