Plant reconfiguration for C8??????
 

Hi Harvey,

There is only one vehicle assembly line in the plant. It has also been rumored that some MEs have been assembled recently on that line during normal C7 assembly on the same line.

Must be busy putting miles on the new convertible. :)
The Forum is still split on GM's future plan to produce the C7 and C8 concurrently. No word on ZR1's end date yet, either.

Plant reconfiguration
 

Well, they put like 200 million into it for the C7 changeover so... Isn't this how they went bankrupt the first time?

PREACH. I hope you are right Harvey. I really hope you are right. I want that ZR1.

Maybe they are going to drop a Cadillac ME bomb on us and have two vehicles built there.

The new skillet system assembly line is used now. After viewing a current side view image of the ME I scaled the rear wheel and tire size(Verified rear tire diameter 27.2") relative to the wheelbase(front hub center to rear hub center). Using the ratio and proportion theorem it calculates out to almost a perfect match of the wheelbase 106.7" of the C7 FE chassis wheelbase. Most likely both FE and ME have matching wheelbase measurements to fit the new Skillet System on the Line. Elegant brought to my attention the advantages of the skillet system process and it makes logical sense to have identical wheelbases of both for manufacturing efficiencies of both ME and FE configurations.

Yes Harvey, I also believe they will build both ME and FE Corvettes. They didn't triple the Bowling Green Plant size to build just one car configuration. Yesterday I got on Google Earth and calculated the square footage of the original roof (942,160 sq. ft) and the new buildings roof (802,380 sq. ft.) using the Google Earth Ruler Line Measure function. It is reasonably accurate. The Bowling Green Corvette Plant information page has always indicated that the square footage of the old plant as 950,000 sq. ft. That aligns very closely with the 942,160 sq. ft. above since there are a few elevated second story office areas in the old building to make up the other 8,000 sq. ft. Gallagher-Kaiser Construction Co. of Troy, Michigan was the General Contractor on the new addition of the Plant. They have indicated a 897,000 sq. ft. on their website(see link below). Check out the photo spread of the new plant interior on the link below. Clearly they have not indicated the subterranean lower levels under the main area of the new addition or also the second level of the above grade line structure. There are 2 upper levels clearly shown on the photos during construction(see photos from Corvette Blogger article below). The lower sub grade level appears to be at least 30 feet deep. I did talk to Kai Spande at the Laguna Seca IMSA race a few months ago and he validated that there were up to 4 levels in the new building but 3 levels in some of it. Using my estimates from the roof calculations it seems plausible that the new addition realistically is at least 2 million sq ft of all 4 levels combined and not the 897,000 that is indicated on their stats. That in effect is a tripling of the square footage of the entire plant. I'll bet that GM didn't want to draw attention to the actual real square footage to the public especially us Corvette geeks. I've talked to Gallagher Kaiser as well as another sub-contractor on the job named Walbridge Construction Co. The Walbridge person I talked to indicated 4 levels as well. He even mentioned the new hill that was created by the excess soil from the lower level excavation of the new building. Sure enough, while viewing Google Earth you can see there is a new huge 50-60 foot high mound of soil that shows near the plant.

https://www.corvetteblogger.com/2017...ssembly-plant/

http://www.gkcorp.com/project-portfo...te-paint-shop/

http://www.walbridge.com/market/automotive/

Has happened before with the Cadillac XLR line..

Production was right along side the Corvette.

I have said this before, and it's still only my opinion . . . When C8 mid-engine production starts up in 2019, that's it for the front-engine C7. No more front-engine cars at Bowling Green. Further, it makes no sense for GM to have invested so many millions of dollars in the sole Corvette assembly plant if they intended to make the new Corvette a six-figure car. They could never sell enough cars at that price point to justify the investment - and that isn't the Corvette's core market. This ain't gene splicing, folks - it isn't all that hard to figure out.

I toured the plant while the XLR was in production. While both the C6 and the XLR were both being produced in the same building, the C6 was assembled using the two assembly conveyor lines, and the XLR was assembled in a separate area of the plant using motorized pallets instead of overhead monorails to move the cars into the various work stations as the assembly of the car progressed. The XLR were not built "right along side" the Corvette. on the same assembly line.

It was more like two entirely different cars were being assembled in two separate areas, but under one common roof.

While the new paint shop is larger than the old paint shop, when the new paint shop went into production in the new building, the old paint shop booth and oven etc was removed freeing up floor space in to old 950,000 sq ft building. The state of Kentucky did not agree to give GM some tax abatements to build a bunch of storage space. In return for those tax abatements, GM agreed to add 270 workers to Bowling Green's workforce. You do not double the size of the plant just to "store" 270 people in a new storage space, with no work being performed by those new hires building cars.

JIT(just in time inventory control) does not function very well if you operate using large areas of the plant just to store parts while they are being processed.

The plant is almost double the size now.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...f6d43ed7c8.jpg
.

Two different cars on two platforms using the same production line?????

I hear from a source they going to remodel the Employee Cafeteria and Bathrooms
:leaving:

Who said it has to be done using one production line. With motorized pallets following a tape(with electrical wires) on the floor, separate production lines can be utilized. Production lines don't have to use overhead monorails etc to move the car from one work station to the next work station.

A few manufacturers do just that. GM's own Detroit Hamtramck plant builds four different cars (used to be five) on the same line.