Chicago Ford Assembly Plant will operate leaner

As workers at Ford's two local plants and the company's other North American facilities determine their future, the company is deciding how it will find its "way forward" with fewer employees.

An unknown number of salaried employees already have been cut from the Chicago Ford Assembly Plant's payroll and 40 hourly workers were laid off on Sept. 1. Marcey Evans, spokesman for the company said it hopes to reduce the number of salaried employees to between 25,000 and 30,000 under the Way Forward plan.

However, Ford's wholesale buyouts don't mean an individual plant will keep or lose a specific number of hourly employees.

"There are a couple of scenario," Evans said. "It's too soon to be specific."

The Assembly Plant currently has about 170 salaried employees and 2,400 salaried workers.

If more workers than targeted opt for one of the buyouts, workers currently on layoff will be the first to fill the plant's job openings. UAW members from various Automotive Components Holding plants, which Ford bought back from Visteon a year ago and is closing, will be next in line, followed by those at other closed facilities, Evans said.

However, the Chicago Assembly plant will be operating with fewer workers, according to a high-level manager, who asked to remain anonymous. In the future, rather than closing the plant for weeks at a time to lower inventory levels, as it currently doing, line speed will be reduced so fewer workers will be needed.

He estimated about the plant will need about 300 fewer workers.

"Line speed reduction means instead of building 70 units, we'll build 60," he said. "Everybody will be able to do a little more. The idea is to adjust capacity to market demand. Down weeks are not a good thing because you still have overhead and are paying people."

The plant needs to have a "pull" rather than a "push" system, the manager said.

"We don't want to push cars into the market," he said. "It should be, 'we want your product, please produce it.' We don't want to overproduce."