WAYNE, MICH. — Ford plans to boost global production by one-third to 8 million vehicles annually by 2017, primarily by requiring every assembly plant to make four different models.
The Dearborn-based automaker has 130,000 plant employees who are on pace to make about 6 million vehicles worldwide this year, said John Fleming, Ford's head of global manufacturing,
Fleming was at the Michigan Assembly Plant on Monday for an event marking the 100th anniversary of the moving assembly line.
On Oct. 7, 1913, Ford simplified assembly of the Ford Model T's 3,000 parts by breaking it into 84 distinct steps performed by groups of workers as a rope pulled the chassis down the line. Assembly time for a Model T went from 12 hours to about 90 minutes.