“With the new product we are trying to have a supplier base closer to us. Not necessarily in Romania but also in Eastern and Western Europe,” Ian Pearson, Ford Romania president, said.
The closer the suppliers are the lower the transportation costs and the safer it is for the plant. Ford is already in talks with some of the current suppliers and with some new ones to see if they can do business together. The carmaker wants to boost the amount of components from Romania, he added.
Ford Romania in May announced it would add a second model to the plant in Craiova, a process that would require a EUR200 million investment and 1,500 people to be hired, taking the total investment of the carmaker in the Craiova site to over EUR1.5 billion and the number of employees to 5,900.
According to ZF’s calculations, whereas 600 cars are being assembled every day now, a new model and a third shift added should take production to 900 cars a day, or 218,000 to 260,000 units a year, depending on the number of working days. The long part delivery times and the risk of them not arriving in time is straining stocks and affecting logistics costs. This is why the company needs suppliers as close to the plant as possible and an express way or a highway between Craiova and Pitesti, considering many suppliers are concentrated in Transylvania and Western Europe.
About one third of the components in an EcoSport are now made in Romania, but the percentage will increase, as the plant approaches peak capacity.
Local integration stands at about 30% and Ford wants to boost it but has not signed all the contracts with suppliers to be able to say how much it will increase, Ian Pearson said.
Eight suppliers are currently operating on the Ford Craiova site, and they arrived in 2012, when production of the old B-Max model started. As production expanded, there is no more room for other suppliers, Ford has no more land available.
The eight suppliers include Kirchhoff (chassis), Johnson Controls (seats), Cooper Standard, Kautex and Magna.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)