Can Ford (Australia) reinvent itself as a components manufacturer?

[Road_Warrior]

One of the things that I have noticed recently with some of Ford's global cars is that supply of particular components can really hold back vehicle deliveries.

Take the Ranger for example. By rights, that car should be selling more than it does because it is a brilliant package for a commercial vehicle that is more than capable of taking on the Hilux and winning. But it would seem the numbers just aren’t available. People frequently complain about the waiting list for automatic Rangers.

The Ranger is made in 3 factories globally, the Ford F-series and Mustang in 3 factories (I think) in the US, and there is the SZ territory diesel in Australia.

What’s the common ground between all these cars? They all use Ford’s 6R80 automatic transmission, which is built on only one assembly plant, at Livonia Transmission, in Livonia, Michigan.

Obviously US products get priority but the Ranger plants just can’t get enough automatic transmissions to meet global demand for them.

Could Ford Australia re-invent itself to make and supply the 6R80 trans out of Geelong?

There is a precedent for a smallish outpost of a car company supplying the corporate giant with parts, as Nissan Australia runs its own casting plant in Dandenong, from which it supplies parts for the Japanese-made Nissan Leaf and alloy accessories for models sold in Australia.

Additionally, whilst Ford announced the closure of its Southampton plant where it makes the Transit, much for the same reasons as it announced the closure of Broadmeadows, it is keeping its diesel engine plant alive. In fact, they’re investing in it.

Geelong already has the facilities to cast alloy parts, the machine tools to machine them and the experienced hands to assemble complex pieces of automotive machinery. Obviously making and assembling an automatic transmission is a different kettle of fish to assembling an engine (duh), but the basic building blocks are there, and Ford Australia could make 6R80 transmissions and ship them to all the factories that build Rangers and remove the bottleneck in the supply chain. If it was cheaper/better/more awesome for Ford to simply build them in Asia, why haven’t they done so by now? The falling Aussie dollar has put less pressure on the cost of exporting. Ford may well say that it costs to much to make cars here, but with less man hours and materials to go into a component like a transmission, the cost differential should be much much lower – if not non-existent, given the transmission in question is only available from one place.

“Re-inventing” themselves to support Ford’s global parts supply chain would also save some of those jobs that will get the axe in 2016 and remove some of the economic and social pain for Geelong as a town when the axe finally swings.