Unlike last year’s thwarted attempt to take the tour (due to a broken 500-ton stamping die just before our arrival), this year, we enjoyed a great tour of this amazing facility. Twenty – three BMC members and friends gathered at the facility shortly before our scheduled 6:30pm tour. Following our tour guide’s welcome and introduction, including a video and lots of facts, figures, statistics, and a safety briefing, we boarded the trams for our tour.
Currently the plant manufactures three Hyundai models: Sonata, Elantra, and Santa Fe — all randomly queued on the same production line. Miraculously, thousands of components and hundreds of options all come together at the right time, at an production rate of one vehicle per minute, 24-hours a day, five days a week, at a quality rate of 97{d7bb5f80100d9cc8ed36d8b44483fdbf859ff4aee0deeb25afed5de8e54bd8dc} zero defects on the first time through the QA tests. The assembly line follows a labyrinth of conveyors, elevators, and underground tunnels between the several buildings at the plant.
Among the things I learned on the visit were: the total time from start to driving off of the production line is eighteen days; the most popular color is white; the smaller of the 4-cylinder engines for the vehicles made here, as well as the ones shipped to the LaGrange GA KIA plant, are assembled here; most of the finished cars leave here by rail to every dealer in North America; that each human and robot assembly step takes 48 seconds; that human workers have a break every two hours and rotate assembly tasks halfway through their shift, to prevent complacency and boredom; and that each assembly robot has its own computer.
First-time visitors as well as those who have taken the tour multiple times are equally awed at the complexity and precision of the production process. Special thanks to Cathy for scheduling the tour and coordinating with our BMC members to assure their place in the limited slots available.
Russell