Alexander Gates, Executive Director and Curator of the Canadian Automotive Museum and Gregory Johnston, CAM Board Member organized this memorable 3 hour, 2 km walk around tour of the Oshawa GM plant, 900 Park Rd. S. Tuesday morning, September 17, 2019.
I was very impressed by what I saw and learned seeing what goes on in Plants C and D!
GM staff took the picture below of all of us in front of the Godzilla robot lowering a truck cab and box onto the underbody.
Here are some notes of interest re this great experience seeing the car and truck assembly lines in operation:
$1 Billion was spent on the Oshawa GM paint shop, which is the largest in the world! We couldn't see inside it because of hygiene controls, even deodorant can cause quality issues...
In the Flex Plant C the Impala is assembled. It has 6 body styles. The Impala line had a 100% DDR Direct Drive Rate when we were there, which means there was no stoppage and no vehicles had been pulled off the line for defects and sent to the troubleshooting inspection and correction area. (that empty station looked an ad from the lonely Maytag repair man advertisements) All Impalas we saw being assembled were pre-sold.(and it seemed the majority of these cars were painted white!) .
The Truck line has 2 shifts. All metal for the truck cab and beds come from Fort Wayne Indiana body shop. They are shipped over road. . Steel frames are supplied by Formet in St. Thomas. (GM Oshawa looked into rail but found more benefits with truck delivery.) The Flex vehicle has 6300 parts when all put together.
The car and truck bodies are spray painted first, then arrive over the roof from the paint shop and are lowered down onto the moving floor, sans door, hood, The underbody frame is worked on (that is, filled in) upside down (because it's easier that way) adding parts and then flipped over by a robot...robots also put in the chassis and the IP (instrument panel), All the parts are thoroughly inspected for defects in place.
Elsewhere on the line, fluids are added: gas, steering fluid, washer fluid; a robot injects urethane all around the edges of the glass windshields and rear windows before they are lifted and pounded into the vehicle...After several quality checks along the way, as the vehicles leave the line complete, they are driven to an inspection station for checking the wheel alignment and head light alignment..then driven into the Care Centre, where they are tested over speed bumps to check for any noise rattling, and driven through water to ensure there are no leaks.
The Oshawa GM assembly line will be done the end of this year, Then there will be a transition to making parts after for dealers, as well as creating new advanced vehicle technologies (ex. the self-driving...the autonomous test track soon coming to the land between Park Rd and Stevenson at Philip Murray since special new features need to be tested to ensure they are road worthy.
I was very impressed by what I saw and learned seeing what goes on in Plants C and D!
GM staff took the picture below of all of us in front of the Godzilla robot lowering a truck cab and box onto the underbody.
Here are some notes of interest re this great experience seeing the car and truck assembly lines in operation:
$1 Billion was spent on the Oshawa GM paint shop, which is the largest in the world! We couldn't see inside it because of hygiene controls, even deodorant can cause quality issues...
In the Flex Plant C the Impala is assembled. It has 6 body styles. The Impala line had a 100% DDR Direct Drive Rate when we were there, which means there was no stoppage and no vehicles had been pulled off the line for defects and sent to the troubleshooting inspection and correction area. (that empty station looked an ad from the lonely Maytag repair man advertisements) All Impalas we saw being assembled were pre-sold.(and it seemed the majority of these cars were painted white!) .
The Truck line has 2 shifts. All metal for the truck cab and beds come from Fort Wayne Indiana body shop. They are shipped over road. . Steel frames are supplied by Formet in St. Thomas. (GM Oshawa looked into rail but found more benefits with truck delivery.) The Flex vehicle has 6300 parts when all put together.
The car and truck bodies are spray painted first, then arrive over the roof from the paint shop and are lowered down onto the moving floor, sans door, hood, The underbody frame is worked on (that is, filled in) upside down (because it's easier that way) adding parts and then flipped over by a robot...robots also put in the chassis and the IP (instrument panel), All the parts are thoroughly inspected for defects in place.
Elsewhere on the line, fluids are added: gas, steering fluid, washer fluid; a robot injects urethane all around the edges of the glass windshields and rear windows before they are lifted and pounded into the vehicle...After several quality checks along the way, as the vehicles leave the line complete, they are driven to an inspection station for checking the wheel alignment and head light alignment..then driven into the Care Centre, where they are tested over speed bumps to check for any noise rattling, and driven through water to ensure there are no leaks.
The Oshawa GM assembly line will be done the end of this year, Then there will be a transition to making parts after for dealers, as well as creating new advanced vehicle technologies (ex. the self-driving...the autonomous test track soon coming to the land between Park Rd and Stevenson at Philip Murray since special new features need to be tested to ensure they are road worthy.
