The Detroit Auto Show will host the reveal of the upcoming Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 next month. The car will be produced by using two 3D-printed brake parts from a new manufacturing center near Detroit, where Ford will once again make history by paving the way in the automotive manufacturing industry.
“More than 100 years ago, Ford created the moving assembly line, forever changing how vehicles would be mass-produced,” Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of global operations, said in a statement. “Today, we are reinventing tomorrow’s assembly line — tapping technologies once only dreamed of on the big screen — to increase our manufacturing efficiency and quality.”
The automaker invested $45 million, to save at least $2 million, in the 134,000-square-foot facility where about 100 workers use augmented and virtual reality, robotics, digital manufacturing, and 3D printing. The center is home to 23 3D printers and is collaborating with 10 different 3D manufacturing companies to hone Fords vehicle building processes. The use of collaborative robots that work along side workers, used in 24 Ford plants globally, help decrease employees fatigue and increase efficiency.
Ford workers at the center also use augmented reality technology to supplement traditional design and manufacturing techniques that allow them, through the use of virtual reality headsets, to “work along side” workers from around the world to make new Ford parts.
The company-wide restructuring that puts faster product development first, led by CEO Jim Hackett, has once again placed Ford models at the forefront of the automotive manufacturing trade. Ford set the stage for the first automotive manufactory assembly line and is expecting to raise the bar yet again. The industry is without a doubt watching history be made and will inevitably be better for it.
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