Filed under: Hirings/Firings, Plants/Manufacturing, Ford My hometown and current place of residence, Cleveland, OH, is reeling today from the news that Ford Motor Company will be idling its Cleveland Casting Plant and deferring production at its Cleveland Enging Plant #1 for approximately 12 months. The writing was on the wall for the casting plant since Ford has been interested in reducing the amount of casting it does in-house and moving that production to suppliers, which are often more efficient and able to react to the market quicker. One could also argue that Cleveland Engine Plant #1 didn't have long before its lights were turned off since it's producing the 3.0L Duratec V6 engine, a motor quickly being replaced in many models by the new 3.5L Duratec V6, which is produced a few hours away at Ford's Lima (Ohio) Engine plant. Cleveland Engine Plant #2 will continue to produce the 3.0L Duratec V6 for use in vehicles like the Fusion, Escape, Mercury Mariner, Mazda Tribue and Mazda6. When Engine Plant #1 comes back online in about a year, however, it will be revamped to produce the larger 3.5L engine, which should provide the plant with some job security for a while. According to Ford, its Cleveland Casting Plant employed 1,100 hourly workers and 118 salaried employees. The Cleveland Engine Plant #1, meanwhile, employed 530 hourly workers and 47 salaried employees. You can check out Ford's press release after the jump. [Source: Ford]Continue reading Ford idles one Cleveland plant, defers production from second Permalink | Email this | Comments More...
