If Toyota gains, someone falls back

Here in West Virginia, we like to talk about the success of the Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia factory at Buffalo. But for every engine made at Buffalo, one is not made somewhere else. Today, that somewhere else turned out to be a town near Cleveland:

DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co. said Monday it will close its casting plant in Brook Park, Ohio, near Cleveland in 2009. The plant employs 1,218 hourly and salaried workers.

The company also will shutter Cleveland Engine Plant 1 in Brook Park for at least a year starting in two weeks. It employs 577 workers. A second engine plant at the complex just west of Cleveland will remain open.

The casting plant is the 10th facility to be closed as part of Ford’s “Way Forward” restructuring plan in which the company said it would close 16 facilities by 2012. The company already had announced nine of the closures.

Ford, which lost $12.7 billion last year and $282 million in the first quarter, is in the midst of slashing thousands of jobs and rolling out new products in response to lower demand for its older vehicles. ...

The engine plant makes 3.0-liter V-6 engines and was being retooled to make a larger 3.5-liter engine. But Ford said the plant was not needed due to market conditions and because the same engine already is made at a plant in Lima, Ohio. ...

“You have to align your capacity with the current demand that you have.”