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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 A N U A R Y 2 0 2 1 2 9 it was a skill that the steel mills had long mastered and Ford clearly expect- ed the aluminum mills to do the same. As tensions mounted, Duane Bendzins- ki of Alcoa and Jack Presutti of Nove- lis were powerful advocates for Ford. Newly established quarterly reviews between the mills and Ford eventually led to reorganizations and a substan- tial increase in resources that allowed the mills to start navigating their new reality. By the time the M1 build started at the end of April 2012, Novelis had run a series of experiments in Nachterstedt that convinced them they had found a solution. Unfortunately, producing the required gauges and conducting all the necessary testing left no time for any additional development. By contract, the first “production” deliveries from the new production lines in Oswego were due to Dearborn Stamping Plant in less than 14 months. Ford could not af- ford the risk of any late disruptions, and by the time the M1 build ended in June, all parts scheduled for PFHT had been transferred to Alcoa. EXECUTION PHASE The upperbody development was progressing smoothly, and with posi- tive customer clinics and engineering results, Ford’s board gave formal pro- gram approval in mid-September. The development phase came to a close by Christmas with the completion of the upperbody design. It was “pencils down” for engineering and the start of the execution phase, when the largest expenditures take place to build the tooling and set up manufacturing for the new product. This period also in- cludes the verification prototypes, a large fleet of all possible product com- binations that starts about six months later. In the meantime, Jaguar Land Rover introduced the 2013 Range Rover (L405) at the Paris Motor Show on Sep- tember 29, 2012. It incorporated all of the lessons learned from a decade of XJ production, and its modern production body shop could handlemore than dou- ble the volume of its steel predecessor. In Dearborn, P552’s body construc- tion team had found a solution to the model changeover problem: The new body shop would be assembled in sep- arate segments in various locations around the Detroit Metro area, and in a break from protocol, all preliminary builds would take place at these satel- lite locations. The design was modu- lar, so that each segment could be dis- assembled, moved, and reassembled quickly into the new body shop once available. Stamping had secured the required tool build capacity for not only P552, but also for the all-new Mus- tang that was due to launch almost si- multaneously. Meanwhile, Tesla had struggled launching its Model S, and de- liveries totaled 2650 by the end of 2012 with production rates slowly climbing. The mills spent the first quarter of 2013 delivering orders for the stamp- ing tool tryouts and the verification prototype build. Because the new lines would not be ready on time, the entire order book would be delivered through the surrogate production paths. With tool production sites dispersed around the world, the mills had started deliver- ing the first coils in January. As the first prototypes were due by the end of May, managing the natural aging of the 6xxx alloys was a challenge that required constant vigilance. DISASTER STRIKES A small portion of the produc- tion was earmarked for the SPR de- velopment team at Ford’s Research & Innovation Center. By definition, the verification prototype build was to use the proposed production riveting schedules. With no time allocated for further development, it was the team’s last chance to fine-tune the riveting schedules. Disaster struck on Good Fri- day during testing at the research cen- ter: Amanda Freis was working with some Alcoa 6111 that had gone through the lab’s PFHT cycle when she realized she could not rivet it successfully. Af- ter checking her setups, she alerted her technical leader, Aindrea Campbell, who after witnessing the failures called in George Luckey, the lab’s aluminum ABS technical expert. After confirm- ing it was indeed a metal problem, the alert went out: The immediate task was to figure out if it was an isolated coil is- sue or if it was shared by the rest of the Alcoa 6111. To find out, the trio contin- ued testing well into the night. By mid- night, it was clear that the issue affected every 6111 coil delivered by Alcoa. Ma- terial from Novelis Nachterstedt was performing as expected. By Monday, the alarm had reached the highest level at both companies and it was clear that the verification proto- type build timingwas in jeopardy unless a solution and replacement metal could be determined right away. Led by Dan Bryant, an intense investigation imme- diately began at Alcoa Technical Center and Davenport Works. The focus quick- ly zeroed in on a process change put in place for the verification prototype or- ders, which had not been part of the previous orders. By the following week, Davenport was re-running the entire 6111 order book using the previous pro- cess, while the Detroit automotive team coordinated the surface coating, lubing, Fig. 7 — Material distribution by weight for the 2015 Ford F-150.