DEARBORN, MI—Since May 2013, more than 8,000 skilled trades and production workers at Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant and Kansas City Assembly Plant have undergone an intensive training program to support production of the new F-150 pickup.
DETROIT—The Aluminum Association has published a free, comprehensive manual that details the range of joining technologies for assembling aluminum parts in automotive applications.
SOUTHFIELD, MI—The automotive assembly line of the future will be more flexible, more capable of handling new materials, and make greater of the mobile technology, says Martin Kinsella, director of advanced materials and process technologies for systems integrator Comau Inc.
FARMINGTON HILLS, MI—Alcoa Inc. says it has solved one of the biggest wrinkles automakers wrestle with when stamping aluminum body panels: formability. The company has developed a new manufacturing process that produces aluminum sheet that is 40 percent more formable than current aluminum alloys.
DEARBORN, MI—Two things are missing in the body shop of the revamped Ford Rouge Center, which includes the Dearborn Truck assembly plant making the 2015 F-150 out of aluminum: sparks and noise.