Plant tours OT

Went to the Steiger plant in Fargo, ND. They are making the Blues & Reds. I was surprised by how little automation there was and the hodge podge assembly line. Anything steel is done in-house.

Then went to the Bobcat plant in Gwinner, ND. This place impressed me. There was a pile of automation. One bot picking up rods, putting them in a lathe, then putting them in a rack. Another taking it off the rack and pushing bearings on, then onto another rack. Where another takes it off that rack and puts in onto the carriage, etc. They had more of what I would consider a true assembly line. This place puts out about 165 bobcats a day, with 3 full shits Monday thru Saturday, and 2 shifts on Sunday. They employ around 1200 people in a town of 800. I was impressed with the size of the machines, the flexibility they allow their employees and that smoking was allowed just about everywhere. This place is a must see.

We also toured the JD airseeder plant in Valley City. This place had the least automation of the 3 with 1 robot (Bobcat had about 200). This plant, while being by far the newest of the 3, was also the most labor intensive, and some of it being very hard physical labor. I found the plastic molding to be the most interesting. It's done onsite by an outside company.

One thing I was thinking of while touring the Bobcat plant was the post of a few days ago "Calling a spade a spade". It's funny, because everyone I know calls a skidsteer a skidsteer, and this is the birthplace of the Bobcat, lol. Oh, and if you have a new Bobcat on order, be patient, they are 5032 behind as of yesterday.

If you were to tour an automotive assembly plant, you'll find that stamping, welding and painting is almost 100 percent automated, while general assembly is pretty much all manual labor.

Suffice it to say that I work at a major auto manufacturer.

If you work at GM, your job security and benefits are probably better they are for employees at thousands of automotive suppliers. They're the ones who suffer the most when the OEMs try to cut costs.

Most of the jobs came back here because the scrap rate at the automated plant was about 15-20% and and the one here had a rate of about 2-7%.

Sometimes having people that can see something wrong and stop and correct it is better than a robot who doesn't care.

At least the machines don't have to stop and eat lunch or dinner though! LOL!

I'm surprised that made it past Kim's potty filter!