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Ford may add shifts at some U.S. plants

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co will increase production for deliveries to its U.S. dealers by 13 percent in the first quarter of 2011 and may add third shifts to some of its plants, Ford sales executives said on Sunday.

Ford, which increased U.S. sales by 19.5 percent in 2010 to 1.93 million, said many of its plants are working overtime and can further ramp up production with more shifts to respond to higher sales.

"You should expect continued increases as the year goes on," said Ken Czubay, Ford U.S. sales chief.

Czubay and Jim Farley, Ford global marketing chief, spoke to reporters after Ford executives met with U.S. Ford dealers at the National Automotive Dealers Association annual convention at San Francisco's Moscone Center.

Czubay said the company is "studying" adding third shifts at some of its U.S. plants to meet higher demand, but has no definite plans to do so.

"We are looking at it on a vehicle-by-vehicle basis," Czubay said.

"All the plants right now are running flat out relative to our ability to get the suppliers together. We are running full out," said Czubay.

In the past months, Ford has had to slow and stop production at some of its plants due to a lack of supplier parts.

Farley said that retail demand was up 27 percent in January.

"So we are trying to catch up with just customer demand," Farley said.

Czubay said the new version of the Ford Explorer SUV is leading the sales, and that inventories of that product are tight for dealers.

Czubay said there are also low days of supply for the Ford Edge SUV, the Focus and Fiesta small sedans and the Lincoln MKX. Farley said that days of supply are in the single-digit level for the Explorer.

"Demand is high for new product across-the-board," said Czubay.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; editing by Gunna Dickson)