Hello! Hello! Welcome to the last month of 2018 and it couldn’t have started in a better way.
It has been more than a year for me at Ford and I had never visited a Ford Factory in my life, so, when my manager Max came up with an idea of visiting the Ford Rouge Factory as a team outing, I was overjoyed. I didn’t know I wanted to visit the factory so bad until I knew that we were visiting it. I felt immense respect and was proud that I was visiting this almost 100 years old factory, which stood its ground through many wars and recessions and the great depression.
Before this trip, I had never been a part of the field trip to a factory, so I didn’t know what to expect, but I was really excited to see what I have been a small part of for the last more than a year.
As decided, we drove to the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation. It was a short drive from work at Dearborn. After that, we were handed our passes by our boss, Max. A bus would take us to the factory, where we would be a part of the tour, overlooking all the factory workers assembling the best selling vehicle in America for more than 40 year – Ford F-150. Ooooh, I just got goosebumps while typing that.
I still remember, I was sitting with Monika during this bus ride and was clicking pictures of the bus, team members, and selfies. When I was clicking one of the selfies, out of nowhere, Max photobombed us. It turned out to be a great picture and I am glad you can see it too. It just goes to show you how comfortable Max was with us and the entire team even though he was my boss’ boss.
It took us around 20 minutes. Once we got there, we were escorted inside as a group. A kind employee informed us how the tour would go.
She helped us explain that we would go to the first screen, where we would be shown the brief history of the Ford Rouge Factory, the very factory that we are touring.
The second screen would be an interactive and 3-D like presentation which would showcase us how an F-150 is actually assembled. After that we can choose to skip level 3 and 4, before heading to the actual Factory area, where we will see factory workers actually assembling the truck from the parts that came across the US.
The first presentation was really good which introduced me to the history of the Ford Rouge Factory. After watching that presentation, I felt extremely proud that I am part of such a legacy and I got to work for the betterment of so many people.
But, what blew me away was the second presentation, which actually showed me how an F-150 is assembled. I loved how the presentation talked about different processes like Stamping, Painting, etc. before the actual Production starts. Before this day, I never knew that building a truck goes through so many processes, therefore, I was glad that I got to be a part of this tour. The way they showed us the F-150 coming out of the hole and the screen and that physical model of the F-150 merged together, I was completely blown away.
After both the presentations, we went to the level where they had view of the Detroit, Canada and other parts of Michigan. I found the views to be nice and cozy and especially loved the rooftop garden at the factory.
The last part of the tour was the actual assembly tour where the factory workers were assembling the truck that the customers had already paid for.
The most surprising and fascinating thing I noticed was that no two trucks were similar to each other. The colors were not similar, the configurations were not similar, one truck had moonroof and the other didn’t. That realization actually made me think about how careful the factory workers had to be to make sure they are assembling the correct truck. That was really an awesome thing to be blown away by. I couldn’t appreciate more the hard work everyone at Ford put together to make sure that customers get their trucks on time. The fact that every 42 seconds an F-150 rolled down the assembly line, which goes on to show how popular this vehicle has been for America for more than 40 years.
Before we know it, the tour was sadly over and we were heading back to the waiting area, where some of the cool Ford vehicles were kept. It gave me a perfect opportunity to click so many pictures. I spent most of my time looking at the Ford F-150 Raptor just because how grand, cool, and slick it was looking. I loved just looking at it, it was a piece of art.
The tour was really cool, and I would highly recommend everyone to go through it.
Next stop: Aryan’s Birthday, Northville, MI, USA
stochasticity 