[TR] How did the factory add on factory options

[DAVID MASSEY]

 Domestic manufacturers have been synchronizing the supply chain to the production schedule for many years.  Quite some time ago I worked for a company that acquired additional warehouse space that was formerly occupied buy a company that sequenced rear axles for the nearby Chrysler plant.  Many vehicles, trucks, for example, can be ordered with different rear axle options such as open vs limited slip or one of several gear ratio options.  This company would receive various shipments of axles of the available options and they would repalletize them to match the production schedule.
Triumph didn't have many options and many, such as radios, were dealer installed.  But you could order the optional overdrive transmission or you could order wire wheels and these would be installed on the assembly line.  This usually worked well but sometimes it didn't.  John Macartney has an amusing story about this which I will let him tell as I probably couldn't do it justice.
 
Dave 

 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Porter <mdporter at dfn.com>
To: Sujit Roy <triumphstag at gmail.com>; Triumphs <triumphs at autox.team.net>
Sent: Thu, Jun 4, 2020 1:02 pm
Subject: Re: [TR] How did the factory add on factory options

On 6/4/2020 11:46 AM, Sujit Roy wrote:
> I'm just wondering how the factory added options to cars.
> Did the production line have branches off the main line at certain 
> stages and then they would merge back on the main line? Or were the 
> cars lifted off the line with some crane?

In the days of Henry Ford, there weren't options, so it wasn't an 
issue.  As the business became more competitive, even the old fascist 
Ford had to admit that "any color, as long as it's black" wasn't going 
to work.  So, manufacturers came up with ways to accommodate the demand 
for options, and that was to create specialized bills of material for 
each car as it moved down the assembly line.  At first, by hand, and 
then by computer, the basic bill of materials would be adjusted--parts 
removed from the bill, other parts added--to make up the complete 
vehicle.  The vehicle didn't change its position on the line--but, the 
parts brought to each assembly station reflected what the build required 
at that instant.

Eventually, smarter manufacturers learned that the system was closer to 
foolproof by creating so-called "add-only" bills at the design stage, 
where the vehicle became a truly basic shell to which particular options 
were then added.  That reduced errors in stocking and engineering, in 
that the basic shell was designed in such a way as to accept any option 
or combination of options offered.

In terms of shuffling things around, that's mostly done by scheduling 
today, and mostly for paint considerations, since running black paint 
through the lines creates some problems for most assembly lines.  I'm 
sure John Macartney will chime in on this, since he has some amusing 
stories about when things go wrong with the bills of material and stocking.


Cheers.

-- 


Michael Porter
Roswell, NM


Never let anyone drive you crazy when you know it's within walking distance....


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