Ford to reopen Claycomo plant and others next month after shutting down for COVID-19
Ford is looking to restart production at select plants, including the Kansas City Assembly Plant’s transit line, next month after operations were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, the company said Thursday.
The company planned to bring the key plants back online while it introduced additional safety measures to protect the returning workers, Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s president of North America, said in a news release.
The first plant to resume production will be Ford’s Hermosillo Assembly Plant in Mexico. The plant will resume operations on April 6 with one shift, the company said.
Ford is planning to start building vehicles on April 14 at the Kansas City Assembly Plant’s Transit line in Claycomo, the Dearborn Truck Plant, in Dearborn, Michigan; the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Ohio Assembly Plant in Sheffield, Ohio.
The Claycomo plant has about 7,250 employees, about 6,900 of those hourly workers, according to plant details on the Ford website. It produces the F-150 and Transit vans.
Getting one portion of the plant back open that provides vehicles for safety and delivery is good news, said T.J. Berry, executive director of the Clay County Economic Development Council.
“Many don’t understand that the transit van line is used as the base for ambulances, and then also we have a critical need for delivery vehicles,” Berry said. “Getting the plant back partially open will employ people and have ripple effect that will have suppliers open too.”
While the Kansas City area remains under stay-at-home orders for those in non-essential businesses, Berry believes reopening the Transit line of the plant will help meet critical needs.
“If it was for the Ford Mustang, I would probably have a problem,” Berry said.
To support those assembly plants, Ford will resume production on April 14 at Dearborn Stamping Plant, Dearborn Diversified Manufacturing Plant, integrated stamping plants within Kansas City and Kentucky Truck plants, Sharonville Transmission Plant and portions of Van Dyke Transmission, Lima Engine and Rawsonville Components plants.
Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler agreed in mid-March to close their plants until at least March 30 because of the coronavirus, affecting about 150,000 employees, including thousands in the Kansas City area. General Motors has a plant in Kansas City, Kansas, and Ford has one in Claycomo.
A GM spokesman said Thursday that the company’s suspension of production is a fluid situation and the production status for all of its plants, including the Fairfax Assembly and Stamping plant in Kansas City, Kansas, was being evaluated on a weekly basis.
The Fairfax Assembly plant employs about 2,385 employees, including 2,149 hourly workers, according to plant details on the GM website.
This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 12:42 PM.
