Ford to Idle Fusion Assembly at Flat Rock Plant for One Week in December to Control Inventory. Camry Incentives Blamed.
In August, Ford Motor Company started production of their mid-sized Fusion sedan at its Flat Rock, Michigan assembly plant, supplementing production in Mexico to keep up with demand.
That demand has apparently been met now that Ford has confirmed that Fusion production at the Flat Rock facility will be idled for about a week next month “ as we continue to match production with demand” for the Fusion. Also idled for the same duration will the the Michigan Assembly plant which builds the Focus and C-Max. Ford executives attribute higher than desirable Fusion inventories to more aggressive incentives offered by Toyota on the Camry. Toyota’s average incentives increased 8% in October from a year earlier.
Fusion inventories climbed to an 88 day supply at the beginning of November from an almost ideal 65 days supply a month earlier, according to the Automotive News Data Center.
Ford employees posting on BlueOvalNews.com say that they’ve heard that the Flat Rock plant could be idled for an additional four weeks during the first quarter of 2014.
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This the best thing I've read in a long freaking time. We've heard these clowns and their die hard supporters tell us that the Fusion is better than sex and that they have people knocking down the dealer doors begging for their money to be taken. They brag about how they're going to sell over 400,000 a year and how the Camry is going down the drain. They claim they have no fleet sales or incentives. In the past 3 months, there have been numerous Camry vs. Fusion articles here on TTAC about how the Camry is apparently the biggest pile of excrement to ever walk the Earth and how it should die a firey, quick, painful death and that those that buy them are scum of the Earth, while the red-hot game-changing Ford Fusion is about to clean its clock. Now, we hear that the Game-changer is losing at its own game and is now being a sore loser by now blaming the other player. And hardly ANYBODY here sees a problem with this and is unwilling to call out the utter BS over it? That's it, Toyota better put out a press release tomorrow saying the Tundra would sell better if Ferd didn't fleet the hell out of their trucks, call everything they build an "F-series", and stack cash on the hood by the hour. Just wow.
Shutdowns...high incentives... Is the auto industry slowdown beginning?
This the best thing I’ve read in a long freaking time. We’ve heard these clowns and their die hard supporters tell us that the Fusion is better than sex and that they have people knocking down the dealer doors begging for their money to be taken. They brag about how they’re going to sell over 400,000 a year and how the Camry is going down the drain. They claim they have no fleet sales or incentives. In the past 3 months, there have been numerous Camry vs. Fusion articles here on TTAC about how the Camry is apparently the biggest pile of excrement to ever walk the Earth and how it should die a firey, quick, painful death and that those that buy them are scum of the Earth, while the red-hot game-changing Ford Fusion is about to clean its clock. Now, we hear that the Game-changer is losing at its own game and is now being a sore loser by now blaming the other player. And hardly ANYBODY here sees a problem with this and is unwilling to call out the utter BS over it? That’s it, Toyota better put out a press release tomorrow saying the Tundra would sell better if Ferd didn’t fleet the hell out of their trucks, call everything they build an “F-series”, and stack cash on the hood by the hour. Just wow.
Well, I finally got through all the comments, both on and off topic. 1. If this extra week of shutdown is attached to the Holiday downweek in December, then it was scheduled at that time to allow tooling work which could not be completed over the Holiday break. This is not denying the oversupply of inventory, just thinking about why they have waited until December to do it. 2. Can anyone here spell R E L A U N C H? Because the Flat Rock plant builds a different mix of vehicle than Hermosillo, they may need to re-sequence some operations and rearrange some tooling and parts supply locations compared to how it was set up in Mexico. There may be more to this than oversupply. A relaunch is undertaken to address assembly plant quality issues, which can be unrelated to worker attention and effort. For example if the vehicle is not presented to the worker at the correct height, some jobs cannot be consistently accomplished. 3. @jimmyy or whatever your screen name is, you would not last one shift on the assembly line. You have no respect for the mental and physical toughness required. No wonder your siblings won't take your money along with your condescension.