Ford Hires Second Frame Supplier for F-150 Pickup

Ford Motor Co. has added Tower International LLC as a second supplier of steel frames for its aluminum-intensive F-150 fullsize pickup truck, sources tell The Wall Street Journal.

Tower, which supplies several stampings to Ford, declined to confirm the report. Last week the company's quarterly financial report cited a "major follow-on new business" that will be worth $140 million annually by 2017.

Earlier local media reports said the company was adding two assembly lines at its frame plant in Bellevue, Ohio, to make high-tech frames for an unnamed U.S. carmaker.

Ford has been struggling for most of this year to keep up with demand for the redesigned truck. But the company has denied that parts shortages are to blame.

Ford's F-150 factories in Dearborn, Mich., and Kansas City, Mo., are supplied from Elizabethtown, Ky., by Mexico-based Metalsa SA. In May Automotive News cited multiple reports by Ford workers that truck production was being interrupted by a shortage of frames.