Entegra Factory Visit

[DSL417]

Had a nice tour of the factory today. First I'd say you weigh what you see compared to what you now see.

Compared to my visit to the Corvette Factory in Bowling Green, not as impressive in organization and approach. Compared to a TV factory in Korea where quality to control was a woman with a rubber hammer and an oscilloscope (wham wham wham top and side and watch response) the Entegra Factory was a WOW

First, it was extremely educational, and we took multiple opportunities to say to the factory folks how much we appreciated the effort they put in their work and that how much that shows. Second, I was impressed with the quality of materials that goes into the part of the coach you don't see, from the plywood in the floors to the wood and woodwork used in the coach...top quality wood in particular. Last, the underlying build engineering of the coach. The coach is built to stand up. The hung walls seems absolutely the way to build. How this evolves into slides is impressive. And, from what I saw, they changed their process to improve the quality of the floor tiling.

Finally, it is easy to see why custom build insertions into the basic coach. It is a tight fit to build twelve coaches a week and meet demand. As with any production line, major change costs in time, and it looks like all three coaches are built on the same line, presenting challenges with the what and how, unless you have significant standardization.

I mentioned the Corvette factory where everything is so fine tuned to meet just in time delivery of stuff to the line and the departure of cars from the line, but they do 11000-25000 Corvettes a year. Here they are doing maybe 650 of all three coaches a year. This was a good show.

[DianneS]

We have our factory tour scheduled for Monday. Looking forward to it.

[Whatnobeer]

Originally Posted by DSL417

Had a nice tour of the factory today. First I'd say you weigh what you see compared to what you now see.

Compared to my visit to the Corvette Factory in Bowling Green, not as impressive in organization and approach. Compared to a TV factory in Korea where quality to control was a woman with a rubber hammer and an oscilloscope (wham wham wham top and side and watch response) the Entegra Factory was a WOW

First, it was extremely educational, and we took multiple opportunities to say to the factory folks how much we appreciated the effort they put in their work and that how much that shows. Second, I was impressed with the quality of materials that goes into the part of the coach you don't see, from the plywood in the floors to the wood and woodwork used in the coach...top quality wood in particular. Last, the underlying build engineering of the coach. The coach is built to stand up. The hung walls seems absolutely the way to build. How this evolves into slides is impressive. And, from what I saw, they changed their process to improve the quality of the floor tiling.

Finally, it is easy to see why custom build insertions into the basic coach. It is a tight fit to build twelve coaches a week and meet demand. As with any production line, major change costs in time, and it looks like all three coaches are built on the same line, presenting challenges with the what and how, unless you have significant standardization.

I mentioned the Corvette factory where everything is so fine tuned to meet just in time delivery of stuff to the line and the departure of cars from the line, but they do 11000-25000 Corvettes a year. Here they are doing maybe 650 of all three coaches a year. This was a good show.

We did our tour in early April and walked away with the same impression as you. Did they happen to show you the expansion out the back? It would almost double capacity of all lines. They must be doing something right. Plus we were able to touch almost anything and be able to walk through alot of coaches in various stages of build. It was neat to see what really went into them.

Corvettes are God's gift to us underlings.

[Us3Here]

We did ours a few weeks ago and certainly were impressed how these huge coaches are built from the ground up.

And getting an Entegra shirt made our day too!

Originally Posted by Whatnobeer

We did our tour in early April and walked away with the same impression as you. Did they happen to show you the expansion out the back? It would almost double capacity of all lines. They must be doing something right. Plus we were able to touch almost anything and be able to walk through alot of coaches in various stages of build. It was neat to see what really went into them.

Corvettes are God's gift to us underlings.

[DianneS]

We had our factory tour this morning with Dave. It was well worth the side trip and going out of our way. We were able to see several of the new 2014 completed coaches and finally made a decision on our exterior color.....Radiant Copper it is!
I had previously read a post on this forum that said no photos were allowed during the tour which was not true in our case, in fact we were encouraged to take as many photos as we wanted but to respect the Amish employees and do not directly photograph them. So glad we went and now the LONG wait until delivery on Aug. 1st.

[DSL417]

Originally Posted by DianneS

We had our factory tour this morning with Dave. It was well worth the side trip and going out of our way. We were able to see several of the new 2014 completed coaches and finally made a decision on our exterior color.....Radiant Copper it is!
I had previously read a post on this forum that said no photos were allowed during the tour which was not true in our case, in fact we were encouraged to take as many photos as we wanted but to respect the Amish employees and do not directly photograph them. So glad we went and now the LONG wait until delivery on Aug. 1st.

Damn...I didn't put two and two together

[Whatnobeer]

Originally Posted by DianneS

We had our factory tour this morning with Dave. It was well worth the side trip and going out of our way. We were able to see several of the new 2014 completed coaches and finally made a decision on our exterior color.....Radiant Copper it is!
I had previously read a post on this forum that said no photos were allowed during the tour which was not true in our case, in fact we were encouraged to take as many photos as we wanted but to respect the Amish employees and do not directly photograph them. So glad we went and now the LONG wait until delivery on Aug. 1st.

We were told no photos at all. That sucks for us as the misses and I wanted to get some pictures of them in various states of undress. Everyone we talked to in the plant were courteous and kind. They all answered our questions and showed us things if we asked. The Amish folks were also polite and answered questions in great detail. So for us it was the final straw in making a decision on what to buy. We're not in the market quite yet, but seeing this made it that much easier to decide what we wanted.
The misses who is normally a "finished product" kind of girl was impressed with how things were done. When we walked in her eyes got as big as one of the coaches. She had a smile that was ear-to-ear as we walked through. That to me was more telling than anything she could have said. I knew then it will be the right choice when the time comes.

[FlaSam]

We're going to be in Indiana in July and thinking about taking a factory tour. How much I'm advance did you give to request a tour?

[DianneS]

For us, we booked a week before.

[Whatnobeer]

Originally Posted by FlaSam

We're going to be in Indiana in July and thinking about taking a factory tour. How much I'm advance did you give to request a tour?

We booked about a month in advance. Everyone is really polite.

[tnrzryd]

Originally Posted by DianneS

We had our factory tour this morning with Dave. It was well worth the side trip and going out of our way. We were able to see several of the new 2014 completed coaches and finally made a decision on our exterior color.....Radiant Copper it is!
I had previously read a post on this forum that said no photos were allowed during the tour which was not true in our case, in fact we were encouraged to take as many photos as we wanted but to respect the Amish employees and do not directly photograph them. So glad we went and now the LONG wait until delivery on Aug. 1st.

Are you going to show off your new coach at Summerfest? For more information, send me an email at entegrasummerfest@yahoo.com

[DianneS]

Originally Posted by tnrzryd

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Are you going to show off your new coach at Summerfest? For more information, send me an email at entegrasummerfest@yahoo.com

We would love to show off our new coach at Summerfest....but because we are Canadian we are only allowed to be in the US for 183 days each year (if we go over that we are then considered a US resident and must file a US tax return). So that means we can't leave Canada during the summer months. Obama and crew are working on extending the rule to 240 days which would be awesome and if that happens this year we will be at Summerfest but I don't think Congress works that quickly. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

[tnrzryd]

Oops... You told me that already. Sorry to be repeating myself. Having a senior moment.

[DSL417]

Had the chance to visit the Newmar factory yesterday while completing work at Precision Painting. Had the following observations:

- Their production rate is slightly higher than Entegra (4 coaches a day across their entire gas and diesel line). They indicated next month they will increase to 5 a month.

- Processes are similar to Entegra, however they seemed more organized, or it may that their floor is just more spacious. The employees work by the piece. They do their 4 "pieces" whatever that part is and then go home.Each employee must know his role across the complete line of coaches, gas and diesel.

- They rely on spot check quality control by 9 inspectors, but like Entegra, have no quality control at a work station prior to moving to the next station. This kind of astounds me, with both manufacturers that they don't have some TQM, or interim quality control processes, in some for to decrease rework after the coach is finished.

- They do their own painting on site.

- Looking at the way they do their side walls and slides, I believe (JMHO), that there is better quality contraction in the Entegra coach (larger studs and stronger build approach).

At the end of the tour, we looked at the final products (Mountain Aire, DS, and King Aire). For my money, and at our price point, I am even happier with my Entegra choice than I was last Sept at the Hershey show. Newmar makes a good product...JMHO, more for your money with Entegra.