Process Selection

A. Ford Motor Company and its Ford Dealerships use an Assembly Line type of product flow. Now the Assembly Line was essentially invented at Ford Motor Company by Henry Ford himself, so this method of manufacturing has become quite widespread over the last 100 years. Ford Motor Company's products are assembled and manufactured in a linear sequence of operations. The vehicles move from one step to the next in a sequential manner from beginning until total completion. While Ford Motor Company has over 90 plants worldwide, it used to have a lot more. Over time Ford has closed many assembly plants due to many reasons. But at one point in time Ford's assembly plants could only produce one or two types of a vehicle and that was it. But now Flexible Manufacturing has come in to reduce underutilized assembly plants which previously ran on one or two shifts, with mega flexible assembly plant complexes that run on three shifts. These flexible assembly plants are capable of building up to ten different vehicles off of two different vehicle platforms. This allows Ford to adjust its production accordingly to current market demands.

B. Make to Stock (MTS) and to a certain extent Make to Order (MTO)/Assemble to Order (ATO) is the consumer ordering process that Ford Motor Company and the Able Ford Dealership use. The inventory department takes into consideration the availability of each type of vehicle it orders and the sales history of that vehicle as well. This allows them to order the vehicle based on current market conditons. So if there is an extremely high demand for the Ford Focus then that means every Ford Dealership is clawing to get as many as possible, so not every Ford Dealership will be able to get as many as they want. While most Ford Dealerships, including Able Ford, would much rather use the Make to Stock process by just building vehicles according to the regular mix of what most people want, they are more than happy to use the Make to Order process as well. Despite thousands of hours of general sales data and history, there will always be a customer that comes into the dealership to purchase a speicifc vehicle with certain options that is currently not in the inventory. So the inventory department will sit down with the customer and build the vehicle with the options they want, and within six to eight weeks they can take delivery on the vehicle they ordered.

C. The particular cell that Ford Motor Company and its Ford Dealerships fall into is the Continuous and Assembly Line Flow cell, which is coupled with Make to Stock and Make to Order/Assemble to Order.

D. The factors influencing Able Ford's inventory department process selection include taking into consideration the availability of each type of vehicle they want to order and the sales history of that vehicle as well. Depending on what the current market situation is will pretty much dictate what they can order and then have built. If there is no demand for a vehicle, the inventory department will simply not carry that vehicle, but that doesn't mean a vehicle can't be ordered if a customer wanting it, wishes to buy it.

E. Ford Motor Company can adopt certain pieces to the mass customization methods. For example, years ago Ford only offered one type of mid-size utility vehicle, the very popular Ford Explorer. Throughout much of the 1990's and early 2000's Ford sold over 400,000 Explorers a year, but over time the Ford Explorer was no longer unqiue to the consumer, as everyone and their brother had one. Now Ford faced a dilema because consumers were beginning to migrate to other automakers that offered different types of mid-size utility vehicles which were different and unique. So Ford needed to continue to offer the Ford Explorer, as well as offer different types of utility vehicles, otherwise Ford would begin to lose its own customer base and market share. So through flexible manufacturing and advancing technology Ford is now able to offer (4) four different mid-size utility vehicles and they include the Ford Explorer, Edge, Flex, and Taurus X. These vehicles are beginning to share platforms, powertrains, transmissions, all-wheel drive systems, as well as many other components with each other. By sharing so many components that the consumer wouldn't even notice or care about, this allows Ford to utilize economies of scale. By having mutliple vehicles share a common platform and common components, you utilize the same starting point and hard engineering, but offer a different vehicle body or "top hat." While these vehicles aren't individually customizable, Ford is now able to offer four different types of mid-size utility vehicles because each one appeals and caters to a different type of consumer.