Next-gen Ford Ranger is so advanced that plant in Thailand gets USD900 million investment!



Thailand is undoubted the land of pick-ups, thanks to incentives for domestic consumption, as well as exports. Every month, pick-up trucks have sales of circa 30,000 units, taking up some 60% of the monthly Total Industry Volume (TIV) in Thailand.

With the pick-up segment expanding to cover more and more sophisticated customers, the vehicle itself also gets more advanced technologies and the accompanying construction method. The recently revealed all-new Ford Ranger has been loaded with more features and to ensure quality and production efficiency, Ford Motor Company is modernising the wholly-owned Ford Thailand Manufacturing (FMT) and joint-venture AutoAlliance Thailand (AAT) plants.

An investment value of USD900 million (approx. RM3.8 billion), the largest single investment in Ford’s 25-year history in Thailand, sees the plants receiving plenty of new vehicle manufacturing equipment, processes as well as training. One such addition to Ford Thailand’s production arsenal is the ScanBox- a surface scanning machine that accurately measures the whole vehicle by five times during assembly to increase efficiency in problem-solving for better quality control.

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The plant will also see an addition of 356 state-of-the-art robots at the body shop and paint shop, bringing the level of automation at FTM and AAT from 34% to 80% and 69%, respectively. More importantly, local Thais will also be employed with the addition of the second shift at FTM, adding up to 1,250 incremental jobs and thus increasing the workforce to over 9,000 employees with their products exported to over 180 markets around the world.

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The USD900 million investment also forms part of more than USD400 million (approx. RM1.7 billion) invested in the supply chain network to localise and enhance the quality of vehicle parts and design-related tools, creating approximately 250 incremental jobs.

Market launch of the latest Ford Ranger, dubbed the smartest, most versatile and most capable Ranger yet, is scheduled for the middle of 2022, with the all-new three-row Everest SUV at a supposedly later date.