Chicago Brownfield Site To Blossom Again

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated, Houston, Texas). According to company sources, a 155 acre brownfield site that has been vacant for some 40 years will again see productivity, thanks to an effort by Ford Motor Company (NASDAQ(SC):FORD) (Detroit, Michigan) and Chicago-based CenterPoint Properties Trust (Oakbrook, Illinois), in conjunction with state and local officials, which will invest $250 million into the project in the next four years. The site will provide a home for at least nine Ford suppliers, who will deliver parts and equipment to Ford's nearby Chicago assembly plant. The site will consist of six buildings, totaling 1.5 million square feet.

Visteon (NYSE:VC) (Dearborn, Michigan) will supply instrument panels, fuel tanks, and engine coolant components. Tower Automotive (NYSE:TWR) (Grand Rapids, Michigan) and Sanderson Industries, Incorporated, will supply automotive stampings. ZF-Lemforder (Florence, Kentucky) will supply suspension systems. S-Y Systems, a recent Joint Venture of Siemens VDO Automotive AG and Yazaki Corporation (Dearborn, Michigan) will supply electronic and electrical distribution systems. Summit Polymers (Kalamazoo, Michigan) will supply injected plastic components, such as trunk release handles. Plastech Corporation (Dearborn, Michigan) will supply injected and blow-molded plastic components. Brose Automotive North America (Auburn Hills, Michigan) will supply door components. Pico will supply manufacturing equipment.

The supplier manufacturing campus is expected to open in 2003 and become fully operational in 2004. Other suppliers are also expected to locate in the park at a later date.

While the supplier park concept is not entirely new, what is new in Ford's case is that it is the first of its kind to be paired with a mature plant. The park will also allow for cross-tier supplier relationships, which has not been done in the past. More than half of Ford Chicago Assembly's external purchases will come from the supplier campus. This will support Ford's lean manufacturing process by shortening delivery times and reducing inventory-carrying costs.

Supplier parks, or similar concepts, such as actual onsite supplier plants, have been successfully used by Honda, Toyota, and Nissan in their southern-states plants. Hyundai, which has recently broken ground on a huge manufacturing plant in Alabama, has gone so far as to stipulate expanding mileage perimeters for its Tier I, Tier 2, and Tier 3 suppliers, to facilitate just-in-time delivery. The new Nissan plant being built in Canton, Mississippi, is having several of its suppliers build their plants contiguous to its own manufacturing facility, so that delivery is virtually immediate.