Auto Manufacturing Growth Continues, Ford Won't Be Slowing Down This Summer

* Ford will add an additional 200,000 units of annual straight-time capacity this year after increasing annual straight-time capacity by 400,000 units in the region last year.
* Ford will shorten its summer shutdown from the traditional two weeks to one week for a majority of North American assembly plants, increasing production by an extra 40,000 units
* This year Ford plans to add close to 3,500 hourly jobs to meet customer demand for the company's best-selling vehicles.

Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) will add an additional 200,000 units of annual straight-time capacity this year. In addition, Ford will produce an extra 40,000 units by idling select plants for only one week during what has been the traditional two-week summer shutdown.

"To meet surging customer demand for our top-selling cars, utilities and trucks, we are continuing to run our North American facilities at full manned capacity, and we will add 200,000 units of annual straight-time capacity this year," said Jim Tetreault, vice president of North America Manufacturing. "Approximately 75 percent of our plants are running at a three-crew, three-shift or four-crew pattern in order to ensure we're getting more of our products into dealerships."

This is the second year in a row Ford has taken the action in order to meet strong demand for its products.

To meet demand for Ford vehicles, the company will add nearly 3,500 hourly jobs in 2013. With its latest announcement of more than 2,000 new jobs at Kansas City Assembly Plant, as well as more than 1,400 new jobs at Flat Rock Assembly Plant, Ford is three-quarters of the way to its plan to create 12,000 hourly jobs in the United States by 2015. 

The company hired more than 8,000 salaried and hourly employees in the U.S. last year.

Did any of us doubt Detroit could come back like this? Be honest. We stood on the edge of the abyss and looked straight down. Yet somehow we have pulled back. 

That story is told in Restore The Roar: Manufacturing Renaissance, a series of ebook essays beginning with The Great Collapse.

Restore the Roar: Manufacturing Renaissance is available through Amazon and Vook.com or wherever ebooks are sold.

Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community tells the story of how the people of Grand Rapids, Michigan change the way the world sees their community and the way the community sees itself. 

Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community is available wherever books are sold online including Amazon, Abbott Press and Barnes & Noble.

Autographed editions are available at West Coast Coffee in downtown Grand Rapids and Schuler Books & Music on 28th Street in Grand Rapids.