Ford Invests $200 Million in Ohio Assembly Plant

By Beth Dalbey | Patch Staff

DEARBORN, MI – Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday it will invest $1.6 billion to upgrade two manufacturing plants in Ohio and Michigan, a plan the Dearborn-based automaker said will create or retain 650 hourly jobs.

The plan includes $200 million for the Ohio Assembly Plant in Avon Lake, which employs more than 1,650 people. It began building F-350, F-450 and F-550 Super Duty chassis cab configurations earlier this year. The plant also produces Ford F-650 and F-750, which was insourced from Mexico last year, as well as Ford E-Series cutaway vans and stripped chassis.

The investment and 150 hourly jobs at Ohio Assembly Plant will be used to build the Super Duty chassis cab. Both F-Series trucks are part of Ford’s toughest, smartest, most capable truck lineup ever.

Ford will invest $1.4 billion in its Livonia Transmission plant. This investment is part of the $9 billion commitment the company made in the 2015 UAW-Ford collective bargaining agreement to continue investing in its U.S. plants.

Ford said it has invested $12 billion in its U.S. plants and created a total of nearly 28,000 U.S. jobs in the past five years.

“We are proud that Ford employs more hourly workers and builds more vehicles in the United States than any other automaker,” Joe Hinrichs, Ford president, The Americas, said in a statement. “We are committed to manufacturing in the United States, as we have been for more than 100 years.”

The investment will create or retain 500 hourly jobs in Michigan, where the new 10-speed transmission introduced in the all-new F-150 Raptor and certain F-150 models will be built.

Ford said it has created or retained 2,800 U.S. jobs in the past five months, and has committed to 8,500 hourly jobs in the United States in the next four years in communities across Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, New York and Ohio.

More than 1,550 people are employed at the Livonia Transmission Plant, where a six-speed transmission used in a number of products,including Mustang, F-150, Transit and Expedition, are built. Production begins in June for the new 10-speed transmission.