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21.11.03, 16:32
USA: Ford spends big in two plants to build new automatic transmission
21 Nov 2003
Source: just-auto.com editorial team
Ford Motor Company is investing up to $US325 million in two transmission
plants to build an all-new, rear-wheel-drive six-speed automatic
transmission.
This includes an investment of $170 million in the Livonia (Michigan)
Transmission Plant and $155 million for Ford’s Sharonville (Ohio)
Transmission Plant, near Cincinnati. Since November 2002, the company has
invested more than $1.3 billion in tooling and equipment at its North
American powertrain plants.
“What we are trying to do with the new vehicles we introduce is to maximize
our impact in improving fuel efficiency thereby reducing CO2 emissions as
well,” said a Ford vice-president, Jim Padilla. “These new transmissions
provide an average of 4% to 8% improvement in fuel efficiency over a
traditional four-speed automatic, so this is a trend with environmental
impact worth noting.
“By 2008 more than 60% of Ford’s transmissions will be new, including new six-
speeds and continuously variable transmissions,” Padilla added.
“Today less than one percent of all vehicles sold in North America have six-
speed automatics, so this is a unique transmission,” said Dave Szczupak, vice
president of Ford’s powertrain operations. “By 2010, 15 to 20% of vehicles
sold in North America will have six-speeds, and by 2015 it will be about 50%.
Twenty-five years ago, the average American was driving a car with a three-
speed automatic.”
Livonia will assemble the new transmission, and Sharonville will machine and
assemble the transmission’s gears, the heart of an automatic. Sharonville
will produce up to seven million gears annually for the new transmission, and
ship the assembled gears to Livonia for final assembly.
Production of the new transmission will begin at the Livonia plant by the
middle of 2005, with gear production also beginning at Sharonville in 2005.
This is the first all-new transmission awarded to the Livonia plant since
1984.
Sharonville started building a new transmission a year ago, the TorqShift
five-speed automatic – for F-Series Super Duty trucks – and also builds a
variety of four- and five-speed automatics.
To build the new 6R, the Livonia plant is receiving a new final assembly and
advanced testing area, new case and valve-body machining lines and a new main
control assembly line.
As part of the case and valve-body machining areas at Livonia and the gear
machining line at Sharonville, Ford will install a series of “flexible”
computer-numerically controlled (CNC) machines which will help it react
quickly to changing production needs and cost less than the outgoing transfer-
line system. The new machines can be retooled and reprogrammed internally,
with little or no interruption in production. In many cases, this
reprogramming can be accomplished over a weekend.
The new flexible manufacturing system replaces the complicated process of
removing old-style dedicated milling or boring machines and installing new
ones, which can interrupt production for months.
Ciekawe, czy ta skrzynia zastąpi 6-biegowy automat ZF w Jaguarach.
