As I build a Ford 10R80 alongside a couple of GM 10Ls, I hold my breath and attempt to slide this D clutch apply ring to keep it from cocking and getting stuck in place (Figure 1). And I’m asking myself, how the heck do they build millions of these transmissions a year while still maintaining such a precision fit? Last July, I was privileged to tour Livonia, Michigan’s assembly plant producing these Ford transmissions. Witnessing the manufacturing of these late-model transmissions is remarkable, to say the least.
The Automotive Program at SIU graduates about 80 students a year, and many of those graduates secure employment working for OE and aftermarket manufacturers within the industry. Some alumni find ways to give back to the program by securing donations, participating in advisory meetings, or occasionally, they may come across a unique experience to share with a faculty member. This past July, I benefited from such an experience when a past grad asked if I’d like to visit Ford’s transmission prototyping lab and the assembly plant in Livonia Michigan. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity. I’ve toured manufacturing plants (and remanufacturing plants) before, but nothing to this extent.
The day had come, and we started our visit to the prototyping lab, which was impressive, but the assembly plant really made an impression on me. Walking through the assembly plant, I noticed most of the operations are completed by CNC machines and robots, while small autonomous vehicles deliver parts and supplies throughout the building. I remember feeling that there didn’t seem to be many workers, but in a complex that’s 3.3 million square feet nested in 182 acres, it’s easy for the 2800+ employees working across three shifts to spread out.
At the entrance, along one of the walls, was a large banner congratulating the workers for producing over two million transmissions in 2023. Yes, that’s not a typo. This one facility produced and delivered over 2 million units. The Livonia plant builds the 6R, 8F, and 10R transmissions. We toured the 10R side, where they built and assembled the 10R60, 10R80MHT (hybrid 10-speed), and the 10R80 transmissions. Another plant in Sharonville, Ohio, also builds the 10R80 and 10R100.
Hypothetically speaking, to put those production numbers into perspective, if the plant operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and all year long, this facility would produce a transmission every 15 seconds! The reality is that they produce units more frequently than that since the production line isn’t a 24-7-365 operation.
During the tour, I imagined what must happen in the background – the symphony of suppliers delivering components, the sea of machines that could go down and disrupt production, and how much energy the plant must be consuming. Steve, our very knowledgeable plant manager acting as a tour guide, explained that the plant spends over $1 million monthly in electricity and relies heavily on suppliers. Items such as torque converters, oil pumps, front supports, clutch containers, CDF drums, valve body valves and electronics, clutch discs, and much more are supplied and mesh seamlessly into the assembly process.
There is a fair mix of supplied components and parts manufactured on-site. Massive CNC machines take rough valve body and case castings through various stages of machining and perform quality checks along the way. The CNC machines have countdowns for inspections and tool changes. The machines also do quality checks and measurements while workers periodically double-check the product at designated stations. For example, after the valve body blanks are machined, every 40th or 50th valve body is pulled from the line and checked for tolerances. A worker uses precision electronic bore gauges to inspect the bores, which must pass within an 8-mil window. After inspection, assuming the measurements pass, the valve body is placed back into the production line.
With a large portion of these transmissions comprised of supplied components, I was surprised to learn that the plant heat treats and grinds gearsets. CNC machines are equipped with large 3M grinding wheels designed with the gear tooth profile. The process is a blur of grinding wheel and gear movement with fluid blasting in all directions.
After cleaning, a robot places a caged needle bearing into a planetary gear along with a dummy pin, and then a machine presses a permanent pin into the carrier and crimps it to lock it in place. This whole process, even handling the gears and placing the bearings, is accomplished by robots while being monitored by a human. It’s a stark contrast to the images on display at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation (Figure 2), located just 15 miles away from the assembly plant, which shows pictures and models of old assembly lines. In the past, workers did almost all component building and assembly. In modern manufacturing, much of the human activity is monitoring and maintaining the production equipment, such as robots and CNC machining equipment.
With that said, there were stations where employees performed traditional assembly line tasks, such as valve body assembly, clutch container assembly (Figure 3), and fastener torquing. For example, the big aluminum clutch container, which we commonly nickname the trash can, is hand-assembled with clutches and gearset components. The workers stack the clutch packs, gearsets, and hubs while the machines handle the heavy work of flipping the assembly around and eventually installing the clutch container in the transmission case.
I had to ask the heavily debated question of whether the clutches are assembled wet or dry, and they are, in fact, assembled dry. The whole assembly line process is split into dry and wet sides. At one point of the tour, we crossed over to the “wet” side, where the transmission’s final assembly occurred and was ready to be dyno-tested.
Every transmission is dyno-tested. Assembled transmissions are delivered to a long row of automated transmission dynos on a conveyor. After the transmission is lifted into position, the machine locates and inserts a driveshaft and an input drive. Magically, the machine locates and inserts the case connector to allow for solenoid control and speed sensor monitoring. The dyno spins the unit up, runs through the gears, and generates a report indicating either pass or fail. As we observed the display that included a long list of previously tested transmissions, we noticed a lone red line with a code next to it. That unit failed the dyno test, and the code represented which part of the test failed.
How they deal with failed units is interesting. Have you ever noticed that almost every transmission part has a QR code? (Figure 4) Lasers are all over the plant, recording and monitoring the production status using these QR codes. When a unit fails on the dyno, they don’t troubleshoot the problem through a disassemble and inspect process. They disassemble the failed transmission and reintroduce the parts back into the assembly line. The parts from this failed transmission will find their way into many different units. When one of these surrogate transmissions gets tested on the dyno again, if a part is actually bad, it will once again fail the test and be put aside for disassembly. This process will repeat a maximum of three times for any given part, and since everything is tracked and followed, the failed part will likely surface and be scrapped.
This manufacturing process has a 98-99% pass rate. Even with that excellent pass rate, when producing 2 million units a year, that still comes up to about 70-80 units a day, failing the final dyno test. The process of disassembling and reintroducing parts to the assembly process was found to be more practical than attempting to diagnose and discover the issue.
Touring Ford’s Livonia transmission plant was an eye-opener. If you’re like me, you likely get frustrated when dealing with poor design, part fit issues, sub-par quality, and engineering head scratches. I must confess that after witnessing the manufacturing process for the 10R unit, I was very impressed with the quality and attention to detail. As I build these units in the future, I’ll have a new appreciation after learning what it took to manufacture them. And if you find yourself in the Detroit area, set aside a day to visit the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.
