Re: [T3] Production lines, was: T3PBO ... take 2

[John Jaranson <jaransonT3@comcast.net>]

I have a bit of information to add here....

First, I have a  book called "Volkswagen: A Week at the Factory".  It is a
collection of B&W photos taken by Peter Keetman at the Wolfburg factory in
1953.  It is a very good book, BTW.  Anyway, it clearly shows on page 69
freshly painted bodies coming from the paint shop (that is what the caption
says) and the bodies are coming out in no particular order as regards color.
 You can also see in many of the other shots the bodies of the beetles being
wisked about the plant on overhead conveyors.  The bodies are a mix of
colors, not batched together.  There are also a few shots of the trim and
final assembly lines that show the bodies and nearly finished cars going
down the line in a mix of colors.  Now in 1953 there were no Type 3s but
there were buses being built at Wolsburg.  The only place that the buses and
beetles show up together is in the parking lot at the end of the book. 
Clearly, there are separate assembly lines for the buses and beetles.  In
one shot there are 3 separat trim lines for the beetle with at least 30
stations in each.

I also talked with some manufacturing and paint guys at work (Ford Motor
Company).  Batch processing of paint was proposed and tried several times
and was never successful.  Too much inventory sitting around if the batch
sizes were big enough for it to make sense.  The solution, at Ford at least,
was to have a paint kitchen separate from the spray booth.  The paint
kitchen had tanks of paint that were kept full by the employees in the
kitchen.  Separate lines for each color ran from the kitchen to the booth. 
The painter in the booth would hook his spray gun to the appropriate line
for the color of the car that was in his booth.  Spray away.  When he was
done, he simply purged the gun and hooked it up to the next line for the
next color of car.  This way the colors were sprayed in the same sequence as
the body and chassis builds and the trim and final assembly.

I would be surprised if the VW did thing significantly different that this.


Later,
John Jaranson
'71 FI AT Fasty (Jane - Darkside Project)
'66 Square (Sophy - Daily Driver)
About Half a Late Square (Organ Donor)
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jaransonT3/jaransonT3/
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jaransonT3/notavwclub/

------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <type3-off@vwtype3.org>
For more help, see http://vwtype3.org/list/