Ford Shedding Global Vehicle Platforms Down To Eight

In order to reduce complexity and increase profitability, Ford Motor Company has a new target for its vehicle platform consolidation objective. The new plan involves using eight platforms for all future vehicle launches, one platform fewer than its previous goal of using nine platforms by 2016.

Ford has come a long way when it comes to consolidating platforms, as having too many raises complexity and boosts costs. As recently as 2007, for instance, the automaker was building cars using 27 different platforms and averaging 3.9 vehicles per platform. That average has since risen to 5.7 vehicles per platform today, and Ford is on track to average 6.6 cars per vehicle platform by 2019.