Ford Motor Co. will take downtime at two of its plants in North America next week due to the ongoing global semiconductor shortage that's hampered auto production worldwide for more than a year.
The Dearborn, Michigan automaker confirmed its Kentucky Truck Plant — which builds Super Duty trucks, the Ford Expedition SUV and Lincoln Navigator SUV — and its Ohio Assembly Plant — which builds medium-duty trucks, vans and Super Duty chassis cabs — will be down next week.
"The global semiconductor shortage continues to affect Ford's North American plants — along with automakers and other industries around the world," Ford spokesman Said Deep said in a statement. "Behind the scenes, we have teams working on how to maximize production, with a continued commitment to building every high-demand vehicle for our customers with the quality they expect."
The rest of the automaker's plants in North America will be running next week, according to Deep.
This week, Ford cut some F-150 pickup production at its Kansas City Assembly Plant in Missouri, though its truck plant in Dearborn continued to build F-150 and Kansas City continued to build Transit vans. And Kentucky Truck was operating on one shift this week.
Consulting firm AlixPartners recently reported that the automotive industry lost 8.2 million units of vehicle production last year due to the semiconductor shortage and other supply-chain and labor constraints. The firm expects output to be 8% higher than 2021's results.
Ford executives said earlier this year that they expect the company's global volumes to increase between 10% and 15% this year as the shortage eases. They expect supply-chain issues to persist, particularly through the first quarter, but to improve throughout the year, especially in the second half.
The semiconductor shortage has affected automakers around the world. Volkswagen, Toyota Motor Corp. and Stellantis NV are just a few who have seen production impacts so far this year, according to data from forecasting firm AutoForecast Solutions. As of last week, about 13,000 units of planned vehicle production have been lost globally so far this year, according to AFS.
