why RV factories so dirty and messy?

[brightsky]

Watching some RV construction factory videos. They are just not modern. Hope to see some robots working to assemble a RV soon.

RV is complex, it is hard to control quality if everything is assembled by hand without some kind of automatic quality assurance mechanism.

Thank those for working there tirelessly to make some RVs by hand.

[Jagiven]

I think that is why so many people are disappointed in the quality, as they think these things are built like a modern car.

RV manufactures tend to make lots of different campers on the same line. This week it makes this model, next week these two models, and so forth. Installation of robots is extremely expensive, and downtime required to programing can be extensive.

I am installing one at work right now, fairly large. The complexity of this machine is huge, safety concerns are extremely high. Price enormous.

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by Jagiven

I think that is why so many people are disappointed in the quality, as they think these things are built like a modern car.

RV manufactures tend to make lots of different campers on the same line. This week it makes this model, next week these two models, and so forth. Installation of robots is extremely expensive, and downtime required to programing can be extensive.

I am installing one at work right now, fairly large. The complexity of this machine is huge, safety concerns are extremely high. Price enormous.

An can you just picture a Robot installing cabinets in your kitchen?

[TaftCoach]

Originally Posted by brightsky

Watching some RV construction factory videos. They are just not modern. Hope to see some robots working to assemble a RV soon.

RV is complex, it is hard to control quality if everything is assembled by hand without some kind of automatic quality assurance mechanism.

Thank those for working there tirelessly to make some RVs by hand.

My hunch is if you check upstream in the supply chain you will see many more robots used by the component manufactures.

[pconroy]

Yeah - we put a couple of extremely expensive "robots" to work in our place. The sheer number of days burned just getting them debugged was astounding! Then the number of days these things are down is disappointing too.


And these guys do NOT have to deal with change - they have do to the same thing over and over. I can't imagine a setup where the CAD drawings change yearly. Or twice a year.


Last time I heard - RV manufacturers were still paying by the Piece. They've calculated you can produce 12 "pieces" in 8 hours. So if you can finish your 12 in 4 hours, you get to go home.


If that's still the case (or was ever the case) then you'd not expect a quality product in the end.

[Jagiven]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

An can you just picture a Robot installing cabinets in your kitchen?

Kinda funny, that was one of the things I was thinking of.

[Old and soft]

Could you imagine a factory full of benders? ( from the animated show Futurama in case you have been hiding under a different rock than I have ).