Case Study: Ford Manufacturing Water Saving Technologies

Ford has set a goal of decreasing water use per vehicle by 30% from 2009 to 2015. This graphic highlights some of the technologies that will help us reach our goal.

  • Three-Wet Paint Technology

    This technology enables consolidation of painting activities in an integrated booth, offering the potential to eliminate one booth water wash section, depending on plant design.

  • Dry Paint Overspray System

    This system eliminates water usage from the painting process, resulting in an 80% water savings for air conditioning/air tempering and 100% water savings from paint over-spray separation, based on production volume of 158,000 units per year.

  • Minimum Quantity Lubricant (MQL)

    MQL uses an extremely small amount of oil versus conventional wet machining. For a typical production line of 450,000 vehicles, MQL can save 282,000 gallons of water per year.

  • Internal Water Metering

    We are increasing usage of internal water metering to identify additional water saving opportunities and drive conservation behaviors to the department level. This has the potential to save approximately $75,000 on average per plant globally.

  • Sustainable Stormwater Practices

    Where opportunity presents itself, we continue to utilize sustainable stormwater management practices, such as vegetated roofs and porous pavers.

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Download Summary Report

Ford’s 2012/13 Sustainability Report is summarized in this 8-page downloadable document.

Visit our Downloads page for this report in full or as separate sections along with supplementary publications.