Topic: How long before assembly...?

[fast66]

This has been discussed a number of times, but just wanted to get this cleared out once and for all (for myself) ;-)

For 1965/66 - What time period would be normal between the engine block was cast (and assembled)  and the vehicle was built?

I have an opinion that this would be around 2-3 weeks... don't think Ford would want to have a large stock of blocks/engines laying around..

thanks,
CLaes

[J_Speegle]

This has been discussed a number of times, but just wanted to get this cleared out once and for all (for myself) ;-)

For 1965/66 - What time period would be normal between the engine block was cast (and assembled)  and the vehicle was built?

I have an opinion that this would be around 2-3 weeks... don't think Ford would want to have a large stock of blocks/engines laying around..

Depends on what plant and even (fro places like San Jose) time of year that may have resulted in longer travel time.  Biggest problem is that we can't know when a car was actually built, making everything a guess.

Plants didn't have the room to store allot of parts (some but not allot)  but for places like the Dearborn plant its not like the engine plants were that far away. Often see a fair span between casting, machining and assembly dates so they must have had some room at the engine plants 

If you use the dates we have from 67 for small blocks because we can get the real build date for those cars I'm seeing 6-37 days in general

[fast66]

Thanks Jeff, I  fully understand that there are a number of different things that will affect - I had a little dialog with a gentleman from Canada who, when I said "a few weeks", responded 2- 4 months which I thought would be most unlikely. As you say - Ford didn't want to store stuff but produce and sell!

Thanks again!
Claes

[WT8095]

There are a number of other factors in addition to storage:

• Supplier capacity: It takes time to fabricate parts - suppliers can't simply make an entire year's worth of parts in two weeks. In the first two years or so of Mustang production, it was likely a race just to keep up with the demand.
• Shipping capacity: Keeping production at a steady pace is a more efficient use of shipping resources. For an example of a poor use of reasources, consider how grain is shipped by rail. There is a huge demand for shipping grain at harvest time in the fall. A large fleet of covered hoppers cars is required to meet the demand. But those cars sit empty the rest of the year, not earning money. In fact, it costs money to store them!
• Changes: Building too far ahead risks the possibility that an engineering change will result in a large quantity of now-unusable parts. Items that are unlikely to change (fasteners, plain steel wheels, sheet metal parts) are safer to build ahead.
• Forecasting: The total number of vehicles that will be built in a model year is not known precisely, so pacing components allows for just the right number of parts to meet assembly demand, plus some quantity of service parts.
• Work-In-Progress (WIP): Ideally the amount that's built ahead is zero, but in reality you need a certain amount of WIP to allow for fluctuations in shipping, downtime, changes, etc.
• Setups/changeovers: It takes time and money for a supplier to switch between parts. Minimizing changes by building in larger batches reduces overall part cost.
• Cash flow: Building too far ahead requires a large outlay of cash, which has to be repaid later. Keeping inventory low results in more of a pay-as-you-go situation.
• Order of use: Parts may or may not be used in the same order in which they are produced. Depends on how the shipper packaged parts for shipping, how those containers were grouped for shipping, how the containers and pallets were stored at the assembly plants, and how those containers were then moved to the area of use. Some shuffling is inevitable.

Some of these factors tend to reduce the amount that is built in advance (capacity for example), while others tend to increase it (setups for example). I know that this doesn't help anyone determine how early of a date code might be on their steering pump. It's just a bit more insight into the enormous amount of logistics that were required to manage all of the parts that went into a vehicle, which is in the neighborhood of 3,000 parts for a Mustang. Remember, all of these factors have to be considered for each and every individual part number!