Ford Motor Company continues to invests in Struandale

Ford Motor Company announced an investment of R600-million in the Struandale Engine Plant in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth).

This investment will support the launch of a new 3.0L V6 turbodiesel engine and upgrades to the existing assembly line for the 2.0L Single Turbo and 2.0L Bi-Turbo diesel engines.

“The R600-million investment in the Struandale Engine Plant is part of our commitment to modernizing and growing our local operations, and is over and above the R15.8-billion investment in the Silverton Assembly Plant and supplier tooling that we announced in February this year to support the production of the next-generation Ranger,” says Ockert Berry, VP Operations, Ford South Africa.

“Through this investment, we are introducing a third diesel engine to the Struandale operations, in the form of the new 3.0L V6 turbodiesel engine that will power selected next-gen Ranger models when production commences next year,” Berry says.

“We are introducing Ford’s state-of-the-art production technologies, such as the latest tooling along with advanced camera and transponder systems that are fully integrated into Ford’s global Quality Management System, as used in our modern assembly line for the 2.0L Single Turbo and 2.0L Bi-Turbo engines,” Berry says. “This allows us to record and validate every step of the assembly operations to capture the entire birth history of each engine. This is an essential part of ensuring that we deliver world-class quality for our customers around the world.”

In addition to the assembly operations, the Struandale Engine Plant will also be responsible for machining the cylinder heads for the 3.0L V6 diesel engine. “The investment program includes new equipment as well as retooling, upgrading and redeployment of existing machining operations for the cylinder head,” Berry adds. “The machining line has an initial installed capacity of 42 000 cylinder heads per year for the V6 engine, but has also been designed to accommodate higher volumes in future, if necessary.”

Upgrades to 2.0L SiT/BiT assembly line

According to Berry the assembly line for the 2.0L Single Turbo and 2.0L Bi-Turbo engines, are also being upgraded to accommodate design changes for the next-generation Ranger,” Berry says.

Plant employees are undergoing extensive training on the new 3.0L V6 diesel, as well as on the updated 2.0L diesel engines, to ensure a seamless production start-up for Job 1 in the middle of next year.

Source: Ford / QuickPic