JUNE 2020AUTOTECHOUTLOOK.COM8IN MY OPINIONFORD'S ALUMINUM F150 AN INTERNAL PERSPECTIVELet's change the world! I don't know that any of us really thought about the future impact of what we were about to do. We were just doing our jobs but the impact of this project would be different. I don't know if we changed the world but we definitely had an impact and altered an Industry. You see, continuous anneal solution heat treatment (CASH) capacity in North America was limited and this is what you need to be able to produce dent resistant outer panels for automotive body applications. Upwards of $500M and a three-year lead time would be needed to support an Aluminum Intensive F150 then Super Duty and Expedition/Navigator to follow. It all started with a project called the MTSP (Mid Term Sustainability Project). We at Ford initially considered the mid-sized sedan Fusion and Milan for an aluminum intensive alteration to Body and Exterior Body Panels but complexity, world-wide assembly and lack of bang for buck ultimately nixed the deal. Focus quickly turned to a later model year program that was built only in North America, the company's most successful and largest platform the new model 2015 F150. The year was 2009 and at Ford we faced a headwind of possible rising fuel prices, increasing CAFÉ standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) and we were an OEM that was and still is heavily dependent on large vehicles. We needed to create a long term strategy that increased mpg to meet the increasing standards and preserve the best selling truck in North America for 30 plus years. Electrification while on the horizon was not a viable short term strategy. Marketing didn't assign as robust sales figures when comparing powertrain options to a lighter body. Therefore, lightweighting slowly became the path of least resistance, however there were daunting obstacles ahead. I was in the right place at the right time. No one other than myself in Raw Materials Purchasing had any relevant experience with aluminum. I had previously worked for both Steel and Aluminum companies in the past and therefore was a natural fit to become the cross-functional voice of Purchasing internally and an integral part of the negotiation team. I became the Global Lead for Aluminum and as we all did was required to sign an internal NDA. The secrecy of this project was well guarded to say the least. Trying my hand at some light sarcasm I would say that ten years later, I'm pretty sure the cat is out of the bag and everyone now knows the F150 is Aluminum intensive. In the rare case that you didn't know it was launched in mid 2014 as a 2015 model year vehicle and has widely exceeded planned sales figures we were using at the time back in 2009. As already mentioned there was limited supply in North America and due in part to age hardening characteristics of a significant portion of the aluminum we determined domestic supply was not only consistent with our overall supply strategy but also imperative. Supply capacity needed to be created and created quickly. We went to work. Long story short we ultimately brought in the selected aluminum mills By Paul Herbach, Director of Automotive Technology, Olympic Steel [NASDAQ: ZEUS] Paul Herbach
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