Bronco Production and Testing Process -- MAP Factory Stages From Paint to Shipping

[Razorbak86]

A friend of mine and fellow Bronco purchaser recently asked me for more visibility on the Bronco production and testing process at MAP, so I attempted to document what I know about it, based on discussions with other forum members and my own personal research. I thought that same information might also be of interest to the broader community here, so I decided to create this thread.

This opening post is a work in process and will be updated over time, based upon feedback received from other members.

Bronco Production and Testing Process
Michigan Assembly Plant (MAP)
Latest Revision: 8/29/2022

• Stamping, Body Shop, & Paint (2-3 production days)
  • Stamping, metal work, sealer, paint, AS/RS inbound/outbound.
• Blend
  • Blend occurs when Bronco and Ranger bodies (built in separate body shops) blend into the Final Assembly line at MAP.
• Final Assembly (approximately 6-7 hours).
  • Cab, doors, engine, trim, tires, differentials, CDCII checks, chassis, TPMS, fluids, labels, tool kits, etc.
• Wheel Alignment & Headlight Aim or “WAHA” [Final Area Manager’s Responsibility]
• Pre-Delivery [Quality Manager’s Responsibility]
  • Dynamometer Testing
  • Static Electrical Testing
  • Water Line Testing
  • Additional Testing
  • Production Photo
    • Although this photo is not always captured, retail customers are eventually emailed an update saying "Your Bronco Has Finally Arrived" (with the photo attached, if captured).
  • Paint Inspection ("Tunnel of Lights")
  • Rough Road Test
  • Gate for “Built” Status
    • Retail customers will receive an email update saying, “Your Vehicle Has Been Built. Great news! Your [year/model/trim] has been built. We are performing some final inspections on your vehicle and getting it ready for shipment.”
  • VRT Surveillance Audits (e.g., wind noise, squeak/rattle, M10 drive home, daily meeting audit units)
  • Repair Areas
• Mod Center
  • Graphics, light bars, and other accessories
• Shipping
  • When vehicles are released to shipping, retail customers are emailed an update saying "Your Vehicle Is On Its Way".
  • After the notification email has been sent, the actual loading process may take a few days.

The latter stages from WAHA certification onward were described in a detailed and informative post at Bronco Nation, which I encourage you to read at the original source.

What this process doesn’t discuss in detail are the potential time delays caused by waiting for missing parts or rework/repair after various certification stages, all of which are internally documented as open concerns that must be closed out before shipment.

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[Razorbak86]

Background

I am not a Ford employee. I am simply a Bronco owner and enthusiast, so I realize that some of the information above is not complete and may contain inaccuracies. Nevertheless, I hope this thread is informative, and I welcome feedback to improve its accuracy.

Future Updates

If anyone here can add further details or correct inaccuracies, please post publicly in this thread, or contact me privately by direct message (i.e., Click my profile, and then "Start Conversation"), and your confidentiality will be respected. Thanks!

Open Issues

• Further details
• Inaccuracies that need to be corrected

 

[ELKS1]

Mine must have missed the tunnel lights process.

 

[Arrmjr]

A friend of mine and fellow Bronco purchaser recently asked me for more visibility on the Bronco production and testing process at MAP, so I attempted to document what I know about it, based on discussions with other forum members and my own personal research. I thought that same information might also be of interest to the broader community here, so I decided to create this thread.

This opening post is a work in process and will be updated over time, based upon feedback received from other members.

Bronco Production and Testing Process
Michigan Assembly Plant (MAP)
Latest Revision: 8/8/2022 Initial Draft

• Bronco Body Shop & Paint (4-5 days)
  • Metal work, sealer, paint, AS/RS inbound/outbound.
• Blend
  • Blend occurs when Bronco and Ranger bodies (built in separate body shops) blend into the Final Assembly line at MAP.
• Final Assembly (approximately 6-7 hours).
  • Cab, doors, engine, trim, tires, differentials, CDCII checks, chassis, TPMS, fluids, labels, tool kits, etc.
• WAHA (Wheel Alignment & Headlight Aim)
• Dynamometer Testing
• Static Electrical Testing
• Water Line Testing
• Additional Testing
• Production Photo
  • Although this photo is not always captured, retail customers are eventually emailed an update saying "Your Bronco Has Finally Arrived" (with the photo attached, if captured).
• Paint Inspection ("Tunnel of Lights")
• Rough Road Test
• Mod Center
  • Graphics, light bars, and other accessories
• Shipping
  • When vehicles are shipped, retail customers are emailed an update saying "Your Vehicle Is On Its Way"

The latter stages from WAHA certification onward were described in a detailed and informative post at Bronco Nation, which I encourage you to read at the original source.

What this process doesn’t discuss in detail are the potential time delays caused by waiting for missing parts or rework/repair after various certification stages, all of which are internally documented as open concerns that must be closed out before shipment.

Thanks!

 

[Mango&Moose]

Mine must have missed the tunnel lights process.

Or they didn't care.

 

[HBTFD]

Former ford employee at AAP. The description above is similar to other ford plants I’ve been in, oakvile, MAP during the expedition builds and Chicago. It does not take 5 days to get a unit thru body and paint. More like 18-24 hours then the units go into a mix building to be sequenced. My plant had 450–600 in storage, roughly a shifts worth. MAP might have more but I don’t see them having 3-4 days of painted bodies in storage.

99%+ of the vehicles go from body to the end is the final line. If a unit gets held up it’s in predelivery (the shop). Paint/body repairs and engine/drivetrain swaps are the longest repairs time wise. Large component repairs also can be lengthy, a damaged instrument panel for example. Our plant seldom held a car for more than a week, usually the big repairs were 1-3 days. During model launch the shop is a disaster due to job rebalance. Usually clears up in 8-12 weeks.

One caveat, we never had chip shortages. I could see a unit with a defective chip part sitting in the yard for a while.

 

[Iconic Bronco]

Thanks for providing more detail than Ford ever has!!
It would be great if Ford was more communicative regarding the process. My Everglades was updated as “produced” on 8/11, and no updates since (not a chip-hold). My timeline doesn’t match what was outlined here, and it would serve Ford well in the “consumer confidence arena” if there was much more transparency!

 

[Razorbak86]

Former ford employee at AAP. The description above is similar to other ford plants I’ve been in, oakvile, MAP during the expedition builds and Chicago. It does not take 5 days to get a unit thru body and paint. More like 18-24 hours then the units go into a mix building to be sequenced. My plant had 450–600 in storage, roughly a shifts worth. MAP might have more but I don’t see them having 3-4 days of painted bodies in storage.

99%+ of the vehicles go from body to the end is the final line. If a unit gets held up it’s in predelivery (the shop). Paint/body repairs and engine/drivetrain swaps are the longest repairs time wise. Large component repairs also can be lengthy, a damaged instrument panel for example. Our plant seldom held a car for more than a week, usually the big repairs were 1-3 days. During model launch the shop is a disaster due to job rebalance. Usually clears up in 8-12 weeks.

One caveat, we never had chip shortages. I could see a unit with a defective chip part sitting in the yard for a while.

Thanks for your feedback.

The 4-5 days for Body & Paint were calendar days based off of actual production reports, but they occurred over a holiday weekend, so if you exclude the holiday and Sunday, it’s more like 2-3 production days. Total time from AS/RS Inbound to AS/RS Outbound was about 16 hours. I will clarify that in a revision above.

Where is the Predelivery (Shop) sequence in the process outlined above? If you can clarify that for me, I will add that specific step.

Given the huge uncertainties surrounding supply chain constraints (including chips), I hesitated to put any timing estimates in Final Assembly or the subsequent steps, because they could be wildly inaccurate in this post-pandemic era. Instead, I just added that final paragraph to address timing uncertainties.

 

[HBTFD]

Predelivery starts after the alignment pit (headlights and 4 wheels) and ends after the rocky road. The gate for “built” is at the completion of the rocky road. The repair areas are also included in predelivery. Also the VRT surveillance audits are in predelivery (wind noise, squeak/rattle, M10 drive home, daily meeting audit units, etc). Predelivery is under the quality manager’s umbrella. The alignment pit belongs to the final area manager.

 

[SHLYGRR]

Thanks for the insight! Mines been stuck between blend and shipment readiness since August 8th so I hope they’re just busy adding on a bunch of accidental accessories, otherwise I’m afraid they built it upside down and had to start over haha!

 

[Razorbak86]

Predelivery starts after the alignment pit (headlights and 4 wheels) and ends after the rocky road. The gate for “built” is at the completion of the rocky road. The repair areas are also included in predelivery. Also the VRT surveillance audits are in predelivery (wind noise, squeak/rattle, M10 drive home, daily meeting audit units, etc). Predelivery is under the quality manager’s umbrella. The alignment pit belongs to the final area manager.

Thanks again. Let me know if I captured it correctly, or if I need to make further changes.

 

[2020FordRaptor]

Background

I am not a Ford employee. I am simply a Bronco owner and enthusiast, so I realize that some of the information above is not complete and may contain inaccuracies. Nevertheless, I hope this thread is informative, and I welcome feedback to improve its accuracy.

Future Updates

If anyone here can add further details or correct inaccuracies, please post publicly in this thread, or contact me privately by direct message (i.e., Click my profile, and then "Start Conversation"), and your confidentiality will be respected. Thanks!

Open Issues

• Further details
• Inaccuracies that need to be corrected

Nice writeup! Very interesting!

 

[lakesinai]

Predelivery starts after the alignment pit (headlights and 4 wheels) and ends after the rocky road. The gate for “built” is at the completion of the rocky road. The repair areas are also included in predelivery. Also the VRT surveillance audits are in predelivery (wind noise, squeak/rattle, M10 drive home, daily meeting audit units, etc). Predelivery is under the quality manager’s umbrella. The alignment pit belongs to the final area manager.

What is "M10 Drive Home"? Do employees spot test some vehicles for quality control?

 

[HBTFD]

Management level (superintendent and above) employees drive a vehicle home every day and fill out an evaluation. At our plant the mileage limit was 75 total. Great perk and the evaluation catches things that the quality system misses.

 

[quico_c]

A friend of mine and fellow Bronco purchaser recently asked me for more visibility on the Bronco production and testing process at MAP, so I attempted to document what I know about it, based on discussions with other forum members and my own personal research. I thought that same information might also be of interest to the broader community here, so I decided to create this thread.

This opening post is a work in process and will be updated over time, based upon feedback received from other members.

Bronco Production and Testing Process
Michigan Assembly Plant (MAP)
Latest Revision: 8/26/2022

• Bronco Body Shop & Paint (2-3 production days)
  • Metal work, sealer, paint, AS/RS inbound/outbound.
• Blend
  • Blend occurs when Bronco and Ranger bodies (built in separate body shops) blend into the Final Assembly line at MAP.
• Final Assembly (approximately 6-7 hours).
  • Cab, doors, engine, trim, tires, differentials, CDCII checks, chassis, TPMS, fluids, labels, tool kits, etc.
• Wheel Alignment & Headlight Aim or “WAHA” [Final Area Manager’s Responsibility]
• Pre-Delivery [Quality Manager’s Responsibility]
  • Dynamometer Testing
  • Static Electrical Testing
  • Water Line Testing
  • Additional Testing
  • Production Photo
    • Although this photo is not always captured, retail customers are eventually emailed an update saying "Your Bronco Has Finally Arrived" (with the photo attached, if captured).
  • Paint Inspection ("Tunnel of Lights")
  • Rough Road Test
  • Gate for “Built” Status
    • Retail customers will receive an email update saying, “Your Vehicle Has Been Built. Great news! Your [year/model/trim] has been built. We are performing some final inspections on your vehicle and getting it ready for shipment.”
  • VRT Surveillance Audits (e.g., wind noise, squeak/rattle, M10 drive home, daily meeting audit units)
  • Repair Areas
• Mod Center
  • Graphics, light bars, and other accessories
• Shipping
  • When vehicles are shipped, retail customers are emailed an update saying "Your Vehicle Is On Its Way"

The latter stages from WAHA certification onward were described in a detailed and informative post at Bronco Nation, which I encourage you to read at the original source.

What this process doesn’t discuss in detail are the potential time delays caused by waiting for missing parts or rework/repair after various certification stages, all of which are internally documented as open concerns that must be closed out before shipment.

Nice!!

Mine has been stuck somewhere in this process since August 3rd as I'm still in the "in production" status. I just wish they could tell me what the hold up is. There should be a comprehensive update for customers whose orders are held up for longer than 2 weeks.

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