Lately, there has been a stream of visitors to the Dearborn Stamping Plant (DSP) housed in the historic Ford Rouge Center in Dearborn,Michigan. What's the attraction?
The DSP operation, which manufactures sub-assembly doors and hoods for the popular Ford F-150 pickup truck, achieved a perfect score in a recent independent audit of its weld effectiveness. That makes the plant best in company- perhaps the best period-when it comes to the precision with which it forms and welds sub-assemblies. Executives from Ford Motor Company corporate offices and management from other Ford operations want to know how they do it.
A significant factor is a condition-monitoring program using thermography or thermal imaging. Thermography itself isn't new to DSP, or new to Ford operations, but the DSP thermography program is unique. After only 30 days, the program scored higher in an insurance audit than any other Ford thermography program had ever scored. It continued to work even when new thermography team members came on board.