“At Craiova we have reached a production pace of one car per minute and 1,500 engines per day. We are now waiting for a second model to start production. We don’t know at the moment what model it could be and when [production will start], but currently the plant can produce two Ford models,” said Ron Ardley, human resources manager of Ford Romania at the HR Conference 2013 organized by Ziarul Financiar.
At the beginning of this year production of the Ford plant in Craiova returned to growth after in October last year the US company eliminated one production shift for the B-Max model, cutting daily production from 550 to 250 cars. In March production rebounded to close to 400 cars per day.
“At Craiova we currently have almost 4,000 employees. When we dropped one production shift for B-Max at the end of last year almost 500 employees were transferred on a voluntary basis to the engine plant where we make the EcoBoost engine in two or even three shifts a day,” Ardley added.
Ford Romania will next month start production of a second gasoline engine, 1.5-liter, 110-horsepower engine at the Craiova plant, which will be exported not only to other European plants of the US manufacturer, but also to the US. Its production was announced in the summer of last year.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)