GM, Ford using usual summer break to make up lost U.S. production

Billyk24

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As stated elsewhere there has to be a demand to sustain this.
 
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ChasingCoral

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Whenever they write these articles, there is always uncertainty if the general comments apply to non-union Mexican plants as well, or just the union-operated US plants.
 
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dbsb3233

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As stated elsewhere there has to be a demand to sustain this.
As well as sufficient parts supply.

We keep focusing on the plant where the Mach-e is assembled, but since it wasn't even due to start production during the virus shutdowns anyway, I suspect the bigger bottleneck causing delay is in the parts supplies. Otherwise it seems like the Mach-e wouldn't have seen much delay at all.

Although another factor could still be the potential inability to run the assembly lines at full speed if they have to space employees out more. And have a number of temporary shutdowns along the way because an employee shows up to work with COVID.
 
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TheSteelRider

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We keep focusing on the plant where the Mach-e is assembled, but since it wasn't even due to start production during the virus shutdowns anyway, I suspect the bigger bottleneck causing delay is in the parts supplies. Otherwise it seems like the Mach-e wouldn't have seen much delay at all.
I perhaps could be mis-understanding how automobile production lines work, but I do believe the plant closure itself is also causing an issue. I thought what was going on now during "Pre-production" was that they were laying out the factory floor, and testing out all the stamping and assembly process. Having worked in an ISO manufacturing facility 2 decades ago myself, I assume they have to document each process step as well to facilitate worker training. If they work the same way the facility I worked in did, in order to create the documentation, you need to run through each step in the line, and tweak until it is right.

Again, I could be wrong, but I thought that is what is going on now. Now, this is work that could likely be sped up or optimized or run in parallel in the future to catch up, so probably not a big deal. Also, happy to be corrected if anyone has any inside knowledge or sources on how auto factories work!
 


dbsb3233

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I perhaps could be mis-understanding how automobile production lines work, but I do believe the plant closure itself is also causing an issue. I thought what was going on now during "Pre-production" was that they were laying out the factory floor, and testing out all the stamping and assembly process. Having worked in an ISO manufacturing facility 2 decades ago myself, I assume they have to document each process step as well to facilitate worker training. If they work the same way the facility I worked in did, in order to create the documentation, you need to run through each step in the line, and tweak until it is right.

Again, I could be wrong, but I thought that is what is going on now. Now, this is work that could likely be sped up or optimized or run in parallel in the future to catch up, so probably not a big deal. Also, happy to be corrected if anyone has any inside knowledge or sources on how auto factories work!
I'm in the same boat as you -- I have no inside knowledge of it, just speculating based on various items we're reading.

I totally agree that's surely a part of it too -- getting the assembly line set up. There's a lot of work involved with that as well, and time was lost to get that done. But my assumption (which could be a bad one) is there's presumably less total time and manpower involved with that than there is in actually producing the vehicles. In other words, I'm assuming that since they were still in the stage of testing prototypes and still setting up the plant for production, they should be able to make up some of that lost time more easily compared to a plant that was already producing. But only IF the supply lines aren't the bigger bottleneck that force the Mach-e to be just as delayed as all their other models.

Or to put it another way, I wonder if they they probably could have had the plant ready to start Mach-e production closer to the original target date, but it wouldn't have done any good since supply lines are delayed anyway?
 
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TheSteelRider

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...I wonder if they they probably could have had the plant ready to start Mach-e production closer to the original target date, but it wouldn't have done any good since supply lines are delayed anyway?
Great point, makes a lot of sense! A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link!
 

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I thought this short video would be apropos. Imagine all the work that has to go into orchestrating this well oiled machine!

If only the lines would actually move at that speed. We'd be getting our Mach-'s next week! ?
 

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I wonder if they they probably could have had the plant ready to start Mach-e production closer to the original target date, but it wouldn't have done any good since supply lines are delayed anyway?
I think the limitation for all manufacturers has been that the Mexican federal government prohibited manufacturing except those in essential industries, and that decree was not expanded to include automotive manufacturing as an essential industry until May 18.
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