You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

[Lee Stewart]

[Keith Seymore]

Not much to see here for 2016, I'm afraid.

We did introduce a number of underbody/structure changes, like floor cargo tie down hooks (hard to believe they did not already exist) and front of dash changes to accommodate a new diesel engine.

The bigger news, I guess, is that I spent the entire summer in Wentzville building pre-production bodies ("integration vehicles") down the regular production line. It was part of a management initiative to make the build of engineering properties more "mass production" and less "engineering laboratory", especially as the number of engineering vehicles requested got larger and larger.

I loved it. I have always admired the magic that happens in the body shop and felt like bringing all those pieces of metal together is what made and what keeps America great.

Normally when engineering builds take place in the assembly plant all the upper brass does not arrive until the vehicles are coming out of paint and into trim/general assembly, where they then huddle around the vehicles as they go down the final line ( blocking access for the worker bees who really need to be in there up close and in person) and host all their daily wrap up meetings to track assembly issues and resolution (further delaying progress). Ironically - that used to be me, too, but I didn't realize we were all missing the best part.

Back to the summer of 2013: Normally the van front of dash assemblies were not sequenced, the only distinction being either "diesel" or "gasoline" variants. But - since we were building specific vehicles for engineering use I had to introduce the prototype sheetmetal at exactly the right point so that the body would be built up and used for the correct completed vehicle.

To further complicate things I was introducing the special material about a half hour before the body tracking took place (before the "PVI", or "Primary Vehicle Indicator" was assigned). So I had to count backwards from that point and extrapolate when my material would hit. I counted, and checked and double checked; I don't think we missed any but it was a long period of sitting and babysitting those parts (especially when the line would go down for break or shift change right before my parts would hit).

I know I had photos of my front of dash sub assemblies all built up, lined up in rows and marked with my writing on the firewall. I've looked everywhere but sadly I could not find them for inclusion in this post.



Otherwise, 2016 looked a lot like 2015, which looked a lot like 2014, which.....looked a lot like 1997, and 1996, and 1995.

[big gear head]

It's hard for the average person to appreciate the amount of work that goes into everything that we come in contact with every day. Just like your work, when someone gets in their car they have no idea how much work went into every little piece of it. I've been building tooling to manufacture jet engine hot zone compressor parts for about 14 years now and the amount of tooling that goes into making just one part is impressive. Until you have been able to see what it takes to make something you just can't understand the amount of work that goes into something like that. The number molds and dies that are required to make something as complex as a car is unbelievable, and there is a lot of work that goes into making each one of those molds and dies.

[Too Many Projects]

I just bought a 2016 car, built in Canada. Nice car..

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by big gear head

It's hard for the average person to appreciate the amount of work that goes into everything that we come in contact with every day. Just like your work, when someone gets in their car they have no idea how much work went into every little piece of it. I've been building tooling to manufacture jet engine hot zone compressor parts for about 14 years now and the amount of tooling that goes into making just one part is impressive. Until you have been able to see what it takes to make something you just can't understand the amount of work that goes into something like that. The number molds and dies that are required to make something as complex as a car is unbelievable, and there is a lot of work that goes into making each one of those molds and dies.

GM doesn't make it any easier, either.

Imagine doing what you do, but the production tools are owned by another division of the company (ie, Metal Fab) and are currently pumping out production. So you have to make prototype tools to run your special parts, and make your tools so they can be integrated in and out of the production tools (because you are going to be jumping back and forth between proto and production during the development phase). Then you'll need to manage the production change over when that time comes.

Which doesn't sound too bad - except - you are building 2017 mule vehicles in stationary stalls at the Tech Center, plus the aforementioned 2016 Integration builds at Wentzville, plus 2015 saleable builds somewhere else, plus launching production at multiple plants for the 2013 model year, plus supporting current production (2012 and older).

Which is still manageable (mostly) - except - not only are you doing this for Full Size Vans, but your real job is for Full Size pickup and Suburban as well.

That will keep a person hopping.

K

[big gear head]

Yeah, we have similar situations running production parts, prototype parts and then the occasional out of production parts for someone who has an old engine that needs a rebuild. Set up the machines, run one set of parts and then tear them down and set them up for regular production again.

[455HO POST]

Were those Vans made out of Tin Foil?

[Lee Stewart]

Ford FX-Atmos Concept Car '1954

[Lee Stewart]

[Lee Stewart]