Plant Tour - Lab Report Example

Ford Camacari Plant Tour Report Section Major Ford Camacari Automobile Assembly Plant Company Summary Ford is a public company based in United States. The plant is located at the end of a tropical rainforest in a place called Camacari in Brazil in northern state of Bahia. Ford is arguably one of the most dominant car manufacturing companies in the world. Besides the 14 percent market share in Brazil, Ford shares a sizeable proportion of automobile market industry in the world especially in United States.

It is the fourth largest in car manufacture in the world. Truly, the plant has very high standards of cleanliness. All the sections of the plant are impeccably clean. Workers are well dressed and smart. The automation system has made it possible to decongest the plant therefore maintaining cleanliness. Other sections such as the cafeteria, port, and walk sides are clean. There are no noticeable emissions from the plant thus maintaining environmental cleanliness. The plant is strategically placed in Camacari, Brazil for economic reasons.

The primary reason is that it is much more expensive to produce one unit of a car in U.S than in Brazil due to differences in costs of labor and other input costs. The port gives the plant a great advantage with regard to water transport to interior Brazil and other countries as well. Plant Efficiency Perhaps what makes the Camacari efficient, economical and successful is the adoption of near-supplier strategy. Suppliers such as Llear and Visteon are positioned as a periphery to the plant. This way they can supply their products directly to the production line.

This reduces costs of production and increases efficiency. Just in time tools such as robots makes this possible. All the supplies of the plant are available at the right time at the right place. This is because the suppliers have integrated their supply output lines directly to the production line. Many suppliers supply their products directly to ford. Currently, Ford has close to 850 long-term suppliers. Such a large number could be due to the number of components needed to make a car. The major ones include Llear Corporation and, Visteon.

Llear Corporation supplies seats and related accessories as well as electric system. Visteon supplies interiors, lighting, controls, and climate electronics among others. This makes it important for these main suppliers to be fed directly to the assembly line since their supplies make a sizeable proportion of the complete car. As of 2010, Visteon, one of the main suppliers of Ford Camacari, had almost 27, 000 employees. For the three months ending December 2010, Visteon recorded $ 1887 million dollars net sales in products and services hence making it to be a large company on the globe.

Visteon has suppliers too and they include Taiho kogyo, Fegomat, TGK among others. Visteon manufactures a wide variety of automobile components. Some of the major components supplied to Ford Camacari include interiors, lighting components, and powertrain controls. Plant Modernization Ford Camacari is arguably one of the most advanced automobile manufacturing plants in the world. Its automated production line is said to be the most flexible since it can produce five different types of vehicle platforms at the same time on the same production line.

Robots do most of the assembly and few workers are needed. Ford Camacari has a very efficient and advanced flexible manufacturing system. This is evidenced by the fact that the plant is able to produce five different vehicle platforms at the same time on the same assembly line. Many automobile manufacturing plants such as Toyota in Japan have adopted lean manufacturing concepts. Ford Camacari has adopted lean manufacturing and this is evidenced by the automation of the whole plant and having suppliers integrated in the production process thereby improving the overall utility of the plant.

The plant is well laid out with the entire auxiliary sections placed strategically near the plant. The port, collection point, cafeteria, and suppliers are well located on the whole layout plan.