The quintessential local Ford bakkie is on its way and as part of its arrival party, is a new 44 000 m2 body shop for the Silverton Assembly Plant. The infrastructure injection includes a high level of automation ensuring the highest ever production quality with the next-gen Ranger.
Ford South Africa has received quite an injection of investment over the past few years. How much? R15,8 billion to be exact and as a result, the sizable Silverton Assembly Plant has received yet another upgrade to aid with the production of the next-gen Ranger.
Related: Ford receives state-of-the-art stamping plant at Silverton facility
This time around, the plant located east of Pretoria has now received a new body shop which measures in at 44 000 m2 and an extensive use of automated machinery will ensure advanced error-proofing, measurement and quality control systems to deliver highest-ever quality for Ford’s local operations.
This is part of the rollout plan for the next-gen Ranger which will be built and sold locally, as well as exports to more than 100 global markets. Ockert Berry, VP Operations for Ford South Africa mentioned this was crucial to achieve production of 200 000 vehicles per year. To hit these numbers, Berry mentioned the plant required a greater level of automation with strict quality control systems to ensure no errors would hamper the ambitious goal.
Impressively, the automated production line for Single Cab, SuperCab and Double Cab, as well as left-hand drive and right-hand drive derivatives is designed around 493 robots. The process transforms the numerous stamped body panels which include the underbody, floor, roof, body sides, cab framing and load box, into a complete Ranger body. Thereafter, the partly assembled bodywork is sent to the Paint Shop.
Adheer Thakurpersad, Area Manager for the Body Shop states: “Designing and building our new Body Shop from the ground up has allowed us to integrate IIOT (Industrial Internet of Things) into the manufacturing areas. This gives our production teams access to in-depth and always up-to-date analysed data trends, which allows them to make concise decisions to consistently improve productivity and quality.”
The state-of-the-art body shop is also equipped with a sophisticated GOM ATOS ScanBox blue light scanner system that has the ability to highlight any issues for each frame rolling off of the line. Thakurpersad adds that “being in a highly automated environment, ongoing skills development is a priority,” and as such the new body shop team comprises over 500 employees.
The embedded video below shows the extensive work undergone to create the new body shop at the Ford Silverton Assembly Plant.
