Blue Oval released an official statement recently that Ford and its German labour union have inked a productivity deal to keep Ford Fiesta’s production running in Cologne, Germany. Next generation Fiesta will be rolled out after three years in 2017 and agreement also includes the investment to run until 2021. The American auto maker did not share any details of the next generation Fiesta sedan, but confirmed that the next generation Fiesta will be developed at the company’s engineering centre located in Cologne. The company is also planning to employ 500 new permanent engineering personnel this calendar year.
On mutual consent, management and workers agreed to end night shifts that cost more and allow workers to work in flexible hours. Besides this, they also agreed on relocating work from suppliers to Ford in order to save a total estimated amount of US $400 million (around Rs 2,371crore) in a time span of four years staring from 2017 to 2021. Ford will manufacture the vehicle at the Cologne plant for European markets. The company has its manufacturing units located in other parts of the world including China, India, Thailand and Brazil from where the car is produced to suffice local demand. The company also contemplated on the option to shift the manufacturing of Fiesta to Romania for two reasons- one is the lower production cost and second is the utilisation of unused manufacturing capacity.
