Re: Intro from an old Assembly Plant guy
Body shop (pics 5, 6 & 7): this is the "Line 2" body shop (Blazer, Suburban), located at the north end of the plant on the second floor. You can tell, not only because of the cab floor as shown, but because Line 2 was a very "manual" operation. Material was clamped in place in these big fixtures and then the individual operators would reach in there with their weld guns and hit the individual spots. They got very good at making the sparks fly in any direction at will and could easily melt holes in your stylish polyester pants or cardigan sweaters (lol).
The Line 1 cab shop, by comparison, was highly automated. Formed sheets of steel (fabricated individual parts) were fed into one end and finished, completed pickup cabs popped out the other. Cabs were built at over 70 jobs per hour (to feed the main/final line, which typically ran at 60 jobs per hour - that's one complete truck every minute). I should mention Line 2 was much slower, at 30 - 36 jobs per hour, and at a ratio of 1 Blazer followed by 2 Suburbans.
The Line 1 cab shop was located at the extreme south end of the plant, on the first floor, and had an "accumulator", or body bank, which could allow the paint and trim lines to run up to 8 hours in the event of a shut down in the cab shop (which was often).
Last edited by Keith Seymore; 07-28-2009 at 10:59 AM.
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