Ford's Chicago Plant Stops Production for Second Straight Day--4th Update
May 20 2020 - 6:18PM
Dow Jones News
By Ben Foldy and Mike Colias
Ford Motor Co. stopped assembly lines at key factories in
Chicago and Michigan on Wednesday, the latest sign of the risks to
companies and their employees as they attempt to resume work during
the Covid-19 outbreak.
Ford sent Chicago Assembly Plant workers home for a second day
in a row late Wednesday morning, a company spokeswoman said. The
work stoppage came after a Lear Corp. factory in nearby Hammond,
Ind., that makes seats for the Ford factory idled its assembly
lines, people familiar with the matter said.
Also Wednesday, Ford temporarily closed a pickup-truck plant in
Dearborn, Mich., near its corporate headquarters, after a worker at
the plant tested positive for Covid-19, the company spokeswoman
said. Work is expected to resume Wednesday night after part of the
factory is disinfected, she said.
The Dearborn plant is one of two factories that make the F-150
pickup, Ford's biggest moneymaker. The Chicago plant makes the Ford
Explorer sport-utility vehicle, one of the company's most popular
models, along with the Lincoln Aviator SUV.
On Tuesday, Ford was forced to close the Chicago factory twice
for several hours after confirming two positive cases of Covid-19
at a nearby parts-assembly facility, the company spokeswoman said.
The main assembly plant was back in operation by Wednesday morning
after both facilities were disinfected overnight.
The spokeswoman said the company believes the workers already
were infected when they returned to the job this week.
"Due to incubation time, we know these employees did not
contract Covid-19 while at work," the spokeswoman said. "Our
protocols are in place to help stop the spread of the virus."
Texts sent to employees at the Lear plant and viewed by The Wall
Street Journal said that a first-shift employee tested positive for
Covid-19. The facility has since been disinfected and the night
shift is to report as scheduled, the texts said.
A spokesman for Lear didn't immediately respond to requests for
comment.
The closures come after Detroit's auto makers on Monday began
restarting their U.S. factories, which were idled around March 20
as the coronavirus pandemic took hold. The companies have spent
several weeks preparing measures to ensure a safe work environment.
They include temperature checks, plastic barriers between work
stations and even electronic bracelets that beep if an employee
violates social-distancing rules.
Executives and analysts have warned that the industry's restart
will be slow and complex, including the risk of infections popping
up at auto makers' factories and at those of suppliers.
The car companies have resumed operations with far fewer workers
making vehicles in extremely small volumes as they gradually resume
operations. Executives have said production will start slowly as
workers familiarize themselves with safety measures, parts trickle
in from suppliers and machinery is tested after the long idle
period.
The two Ford employees that tested positive for the virus passed
an initial temperature check when they arrived for their shifts on
Tuesday, the company spokeswoman said. It was unclear how they
later tested positive during their work shifts, she said. Employees
who had close contact with the workers were asked to
self-quarantine for two weeks.
Ford experienced a troubled rollout last year of a redesigned
Explorer and the Aviator, a new SUV model, after a major overhaul
of the Chicago factory. Executives cited the problematic launch as
a major reason that Ford fell short of its profit target in 2019,
but have said the factory now is operating smoothly.
--Austen Hufford contributed to this article.
Write to Ben Foldy at Ben.Foldy@wsj.com and Mike Colias at
Mike.Colias@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 20, 2020 18:03 ET (22:03 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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