Tuesday, June 4, 2013

River Rouge ERC Tour 2013


The visit to Ford River Rouge plant is a great way to understand how cars are assembled. The tour starts with a video overview of the River Rouge plant, which opened in 1913, and the history of Ford Motor Corporation. The video shows how Henry Ford developed the assembly line to increase productivity in the manufacture of automobiles.  When Ford started this approach, it reduced the time to make a car from 12 hours to 93 minutes.  The second “multi-sensory” video showed how the process at the River Rouge Factory. We all were able to see the assembly process, and see the F150 trucks rolling off the assembly line.

Students are able to assess the types of work that workers perform during the assembly process, as well as how mechanized the process is.  Many of the steps in the process are mechanized, utilizing robots and other machinery to install parts to create the F150.

Tonight we are in Toledo. We will visit with Materion Brush staff during dinner to prepare for our visit to their facility tomorrow.





4 comments:

Unknown said...

It was interesting to see the Ford plant where the legendary F-150 is built:
(oh my Lord...its an F-150 Ford), while keeping an eye on the environment.

Anonymous said...

For today’s ERC site visit course we visited the environmentally-friendly Ford Rouge, the US company factory site that devoted almost entirely to the development of its F150 truck series. From the beginning of its assembly-line type approach to car assembly, his workforce has been quite productive, as the company appears have continued to emphasize the importance of fairly compensating its hardworking workforce as well as providing a hazard-free work environment. At the time of its inception, the company needed to emphasize all aspects of the automaking production process, including founding, machining, stamping, plasticizing, and vehicle testing, but it now that the founding process is unnecessary (the raw materials are readily available from third-parties), it no longer requires a foundry on-site.

As far as the company’s approach to automaking, it remains similar to the original basic assembly line approach of its inventor, however, with significant computerized automation of its work flow processes that are now supplemented by the coordinated efforts of its assembly line team members, for whom there appear to be important ergonomic engineering controls and tools that accommodate the workers in almost all facets of its present-day assembly line process.

Hemant

Ifeanyi said...

NIce to finally see a motor assembly line in action

Unknown said...

A GREAT moment.
The history of Ford empire first through the time machine.
Secondly a great panoramic show about producing cars and finally Live the procedure of how you create a car.
Really unique experience. Many ergonomic features for the employees who look to enjoy their participation in the procedure