Day 1 and 2: Dearborn, U.S.A.: The cradle of true mass-production

Thursday 11/1

We will assemble in Detroit for a leisurely dinner, and a tour pre-briefing.

Friday 11/2

The MagicalMysteryPlantTour will officially begin where the modern mass-produced auto industry began: Detroit, the Motor City. In honor of Henry Ford we will start the global tour with a visit to one of Ford’s flagship plants, Dearborn Truck. A rare example of high-margin products built at high volume, Dearborn Truck is one of the premier profit centers in the global auto industry.

On the site of the storied River Rouge Complex. Dearborn Truck is a 2.6 million square foot facility where more than 4,000 workers build the F-series trucks that have dominated American sales charts for decades, at a rate of one truck per minute. Built in 2004 and recently retooled for the latest aluminum body construction techniques, Dearborn Truck exemplifies the beating heart of America’s renewed auto industry.

Expect to see some of the innovative new technologies and practices that Ed Niedermeyer recently wrote about after visiting Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in a fruitless search for “production hell” at the company that invented the moving assembly line.

To equip us with the proper historical background, we’ll swing by the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.