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The Ford Taurus X crossover offers three rows of seats in an SUV-like body. The Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable full-size sedans take attributes that make crossover vehicles popular and apply them to a sedan, resulting in a spacious interior with a high "command" seating position.
Challenge: Build a new plant in Ford's Supplier Park to supply large, complex body components, utilizing high-strength and dual-phase steel.
Solution: Tower designed and built a new 475,000 sq. ft. (45,000 sq. meter) "greenfield" plant, using leading-edge technology to develop more than 300 stampings incorporating more than 100 high-strength DP600 steel parts and 14 "dual phase" steel components. This enabled the use of different material types and thicknesses on a single stamping. 180 robots are incorporated into the assembly process.
Products: Tower's Chicago facility provides rear floor pan assemblies, apron assemblies, inner side rail assemblies, front sub-frames and other structural stampings. It handles stamping, assembly, coating and final shipment of up to 1,200 component sets per day to Ford.