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Ford CEO on restarting production in North America

In this episode of Influencers, Ford CEO Jim Hackett joins Andy Serwer to analyze the health of the U.S. auto industry and discuss the prospects of a swift recovery for the American workforce.

Video Transcript

JIM HACKETT: There was lots of discussions across the country because we have, you know, facilities in other states. And Bill Ford and I both engage Congressional and Senate leaders, as well as governors of those states. And I was really proud of the way that everyone worked together-- you know, the mission of taking care of our people and also getting the economy turned back on.

ANDY SERWER: Yeah, how do you keep the workers safe, Jim? How are you going to do that process? Are you going to be doing temperature checks? And then what happens if someone has a temperature? Take us through some of that.

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JIM HACKETT: You bet. The strategy of, you know, washing your hands and social distancing really matters. In fact, we had an epidemiologist, two of them, that counseled us. And they believed that social distancing still is the one variable that matters the most. So the layout, spaces, so that people can understand those barriers.

We created a series of devices of masks, both face shields and masks, as well as proximity warning devices that we're trying in a couple factories, and a whole screening process, Andy, that you have to go through each day as you come into the factory, including the temperature checks. A thermal camera actually gets to the bottom of that. And then testing is soon to follow.

So testing right now isn't reliable enough that we would test people everyday. But we believe that will be coming soon. And that's likely to be in the protocols.