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Proactive approach
In a recent development, Ford has awarded Halewood a £ 380 million investment as part of a revitalization program.“ Consisting of two phases, this investment enabled us to become the first European power unit plant. No company would award £ 380 million in investment merely because Halewood is a great place to work with talented people. This decision was driven by the total landed cost at the customer vehicle plant, which includes the logistics of delivering the power units to the vehicle plants. Consequently, we worked closely and diligently with our trade union business partners to agree on a framework for how we will run the business moving forward. The facility we now have can be traced back to our flagship initiative, E: PriME. This began at our research facility in Dunton, where our powertrain manufacturing engineering team created a prototype facility to determine the best way to produce a power unit. By working with the government and various partners, our research facility was able to refine that process, leading to the start of mass production of this new product. Thanks to the development work at Dunton along with a significant amount of reuse of existing components and processes, we were able to put together a successful bid,” Lee divulges.
Production of Ford’ s new electric drive units commenced in December of 2024 at Halewood. Lee reveals how the first few months have performed thus far.“ Although every launch is not without challenges, we are currently meeting our targets, an impressing feat considering we have onboarded over 400 people while simultaneously introducing new products, technologies, and processes. Typically, this would not be the recipe for a successful launch, but our proactive approach has made the difference. We have heavily invested in upskilling our teams particularly with the Rotor and Stator teams. In additional to traditional training, we also involved our teams directly in the commissioning and
Consisting of two phases, this investment enabled us to become the first European power unit plant
sign-off processes and fostering collaboration with our machine tool vendors. The role of our machine tool builders cannot be understated. While making gears and machining components and remain parts of our core skills, our growing focus on mastering new technologies has also been transformative. What is most remarkable is how everyone, from new apprentices to employees with over 40 years of service, has fully embraced this opportunity to enhance their skillsets.”
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