Dow Automotive Serves As Molder For Ford In Brazil

Dow Automotive has taken on supply of injection molded components and painted assemblies at Ford Motor Co.’s Northeastern Industrial Complex in Camaçari, Brazil. This is the first time the company has operated an independent plastics part manufacturing facility, and although the circumstances surrounding the project are unusual, it may not be the last.

The effort goes beyond what Dow Chemical does in its 18-month-old Inclosia Solutions business. An art-to-part service for special housings for handheld electronic devices, that business conducts part design, engineering, prototyping, tooling, and fabrication. Molding is performed by third parties, and work has been done for Compaq, Eimo, and others.

Ford’s $1.9-billion Brazil complex is claimed to be the world’s first to operate with a sequenced modular assembly system, which allies the OEM (responsible for assembling the body, painting, and final assembly) and 33 vendors providing modules and services. Twenty-seven vendors operate in the complex. (Most car plants, by contrast, have well over 100 suppliers.)

Dow built a state-of-the-art production facility within the Ford site to provide ongoing technical development, R&D, manufacturing, and production expertise. Dow Automotive manufactures more than 20 parts for a version of the Ford Fiesta designed for the South American market, including the front and rear fascias and various interior and exterior trim components. It supplies around 35 kg of moldings per car, over 27 kg of which are in polypropylene. Most of these parts are supplied directly to the assembly line, but Dow also delivers instrument-panel components to Visteon, another on-site Tier 1 supplier.

Ford can roll out a Fiesta off the assembly line every 80 s, or 850 daily. Early this year, it will begin production of a sport-utility vehicle called the Ecosport. Dow will not say if it will supply parts for the SUV, but indications are that it will.

Bob Rogowski, Dow Automotive’s director of integrated sites, says that the company was brought in late in the project, in the first half of 2000. At that time, Dow Chemical already was working with Ford Motor Co. and various Tier suppliers on materials and technical support.

Dow Automotive stepped in at Ford’s request after the OEM ended its relationship with the original molder. It had two molding machines in place last April and relied on outside help. The painting line was not installed until the third quarter last year, so all parts that required painting had to be shipped out — to as far as the U.S., in some cases — and sent back. It got into full part production last November, seven months after production of the Fiesta began.

“This is a very unique situation,” says Rogowski, who affirms that Dow has no intention of muscling in on its processor customers’ business. “We are not going to proliferate this model.” Rogowski, moreover, says none of its processor customers were interested in the Ford business. “It involved a significant investment in a non-automotive industrial region of Brazil,” he notes.

But he does not rule out that Dow could do something similar in an emerging market where there are no established supply channels. But, “the pull would have to come from the OEM,” he says.

Dow Automotive, a self-contained unit within Dow Chemical that handles all auto-related business in materials, parts, modules, and systems, indeed has a growth strategy that relies on expansion into downstream areas not covered by its customers. Its biggest move in this direction was in early 2001, when it took full control of Gurit Essex AG, the largest European supplier of automotive adhesives, sealants, and body engineered systems.