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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 2 0 3 1 new equipment had to be ordered and installed in time for the tool try- out in home lines that would start nine months before J1. Based on the produc- tivity report, it was already understood that new stamping lines would be re- quired, and orders needed to be placed quickly. The plants that would receive them needed to be identified and modernized. For Stamping Engineer- ing, an aluminum truck meant design- ing, sourcing, and launching 120 sets of tools simultaneously. Foundry and tool shop capacity worldwide had to be secured quickly and discreetly. The downturn was helping there too. Ford’s upper management was keenly aware that ACE was not a normal project and that it required deviation from the usual financial planning. The first indication of how seriously they took the project was when they agreed that the upcoming Super Duty would share the F-150 cab and doors, with its own front end and box, and therefore would support the joint capacity in- crease (at that point, the preplanning activity for Super Duty had just start- ed). They would commit the company to the aluminum platform at the mile- stone, following a successful manage- ment review. That would be followed by an early funding release to kickstart the manufacturing facilities upgrades. At the same time, Ford would enter into a contractual commitment with the alu- minum companies and backstop the re- quired funding for their own facilities expansion. By now, ACE had been giv- en its own program name, P552. Pete Reyes, a veteran of three successful pro- grams was appointed chief program engineer in February. He was a truck veteran, having led the previous Super Duty program. As 2009 became 2010, automotive sales hadbottomedout 40%below their peak four years earlier. Among all the gloom, signs of a timid recovery were starting to appear, but the engineers and suppliers working on ACE were too busy to even notice. As the weeks went by, the pace of planning accelerat- ed. Raw Materials Purchasing was now looking to introduce a third player. But there was no other existing heat treat capacity in North America, and even a project as large as F-150 could not pro- vide a sufficiently attractive business case to entice a third player. In the end, Ford approached an incredulous Aleris to supply the simplest combination on the bill of materials: 5754 that would not require surface treatment and could readily be made at the company’s Lew- isport, Kentucky, rolling mill. Aleris be- came a junior—but vital—participant in the project. By late April 2010, Novelis had set- tled on building two new integrated continuous anneal/heat treat/surface treatment lines in the Oswego plant to be housed in a new building exten- sion. Davenport was still not convinced that Ford was serious, and they sepa- rated heat treat and surface treatment into individual lines that could pro- duce aerospace material if needed. The new equipment would be housed in a newly repurposed area of the existing building. SHOWTIME On April 28, in a conference room on mahogany row in Ford’s design cen- ter, Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s global VP of product development, convened all the key functional players. One by one, he asked them if they were ready to pro- ceed. He started with Tim Marasco, global chief for stamping engineering, and got a resounding “yes.” One by one, all gave their concurrence. After the last yes, the room was silent for a moment. Then Kuzak quietly stated, “This is a his- toric moment for Ford Motor Compa- ny” and thanked everyone. From there, the decision slowly made its way to the board of directors and on June 21, 2010, P552 had officially passed its manage- ment review gateway. Twenty-one years after Alcan’s Mike Kelly present- ed his “Manufacturing Cost Study,” Ford was now finally committed to not one, but two and maybe three high-volume aluminum-intensive vehicles. A new chapter had begun. Alcoa and Novelis could issue the purchase orders for the required heat treat capacity expansion. With its engi- neering now settled, material orders for X1 were placed and prototype tooling began. Learn what happened next in Part XI of this article series, to be published in a future issue of AM&P. ~AM&P For more information: Laurent Chap- puis, president, Light Metal Consultants LLC, 8600 Church Rd., Grosse Ile, MI 48138, lbchappuis@icloud.com . Acknowledgments Ford: Peter Friedman, John Hill, Mark Keller, Darrin Wagner, Corey Jarocki, Chris Mracna, and Kathy Minnich Novelis: Michael Bull, Jack Presutti, and Alex Graf Alcoa: Rajeev Kamat (now at Novelis) Ford 2011 Super Duty.