CHICAGO | Hailed as revolutionary, time-saving and innovative in 2004, the Chicago Ford manufacturing campus is now seeing hard times with suppliers' survival tied to Ford's downturn.

Ford, which invested $100 million in the project at the time, called the park "an evolution in automobile manufacturing" when it first announced its development in September 2000.

"By integrating logistics, inventories, supplier manufacturing operations and sequencing of manufacturing schedules, the plant and supplier campus will be able to respond more quickly and efficiently to changes in customer demands," Ford said at the time.

But Kim Hill, director of the Center for Automotive Research's Automotive Communities Program, said what was thought to be a good idea then hasn't turned out to be so for suppliers that located there.

"For suppliers, who are in so close proximity to an assembly plant, they're beholden to the assembly plant and are wedded to that company," he said. "Unless they get long-term contracts, it may or may not work out for them. ... What's happened there is the original vehicles that went through there haven't been popular. They had no long shelf life."

At inception, developers said the campus was to house about a dozen suppliers for the company in the facilities' five buildings with a total of 1.7 million square feet of space.

Kristine Dziczek, director of CAR's Automotive Labor and Education Program, said most international auto plants, including Honda and Toyota, have supplier parks, and the arrangement works very well.

"But most of those companies are on a growth trajectory," she said. "Ford is not on a growth trajectory."

Michael Robinet, vice president of Novi, Mich.-based Global Vehicle Forecasts, said the entire auto industry has been affected by the downturn in auto sales, especially the plants making large cars and trucks.Sales in the United States, Canada and Mexico are expected to be 13 million vehicles in 2008, down from 17 million in 2005, he said.

Sales in the United States, Canada and Mexico are expected to be 13 million vehicles in 2008, down from 17 million in 2005, he said.