While Airstream’s production procedure is strongly rooted in the tried and true techniques established in the early 20 th Century, our quality control is notified by digital tools and 21 st Century innovation. Action inside Airstream’s production centers for a behind-the-scenes take a look at how we’re continually enhancing our legacy-worthy quality.
Quality, they state, remains in the eye of the beholder— a reflection of private worths, choices, and expectations. However while the meaning may vary from individual to individual, there are specific items that stand the test of time, tran scending the ephemeral nature of the term “quality.”
Our brand-new video takes you inside Airstream’s production centers for a behind-the-scenes take a look at our quality efforts.
These are the items that have actually been crafted with care and attention to information, utilizing the finest products and time-honored methods. They have an uncommon mix of kind and function, appeal and energy, that interest generations of consumers. From timeless vehicles and classic furnishings to handmade guitars and art, these items embody a sense of long-lasting quality that defies the passage of time. They are a testimony to the ability and devotion of their makers, and to the long-lasting worth of quality in workmanship. In a world where the meaning of quality is continuously progressing, these items work as a tip that real quality is ageless.
For more than 90 years, Airstream has handmade the world’s most renowned rvs with a devotion to constructing the absolute best item possible. From the style stage to the assembly line and on to our across the country dealership network, we aim at all indicate include quality efforts into our procedure. After practically a century, we still construct Airstreams by hand. We still source the very best products, parts, and elements we can discover. And we still style items that are made to be utilized for generations, with attention to the information that make Airstream stick out from the crowd.
However what has actually altered over the last few years is the method we work every day to guarantee our items are constructed properly, with innovation and systems that permit us to track problems as they emerge and change the procedure when we figure out how to enhance it. The methods and treatments you see on the Airstream assembly line are– in big part– still strongly rooted in the hand-made procedure set out by Wally Byam in the early 20 th Century. However our quality efforts progressively utilize digital tools readily available in our technological age– with an eye strongly concentrated on constant enhancement as we advance ever even more into the 21 st Century.
Our Dedication to Quality: Training, Digital Tools, and New Production Facilities
Extensive Dealership, Service, and Production Training
While much of Airstream’s quality efforts are driven by innovation and digital tools, quality on the assembly line starts with a human touch in our substantial partner training procedure. New works with are informed in the history of the business, tried and true methods, and brand-new tools prior to they ever step onto the production flooring. This is enabled by the training bays constructed into the plans of the brand-new production center. Our company believe that the very best quality starts on the line, therefore brand-new hires are provided an extensive education at the same time. As partners acquire more experience, group leaders and supervisors acknowledge their accomplishments with more obligation and more chances to grow their understanding in other departments. Current and long time partners working side by side leads to a special transfer of understanding and understanding that just includes experience and a desire to discover and share.
Our training extends beyond brand-new hires to our service techs and dealership partners. A number of times a year, Airstream’s dealership network sends out sales and service groups from throughout the nation to the cornfields of Jackson Center, Ohio. Here, inside Airstream’s Travel Trailer Production Center, they get hands-on training that prepares them for a range of scenarios– from captivating and changing dinged up aluminum panels to brand-new optional functions ready to strike the marketplace.
The dedication to quality at the dealership level is shown in our 5 Rivet Dealership program, where current consumers rank their dealership experience in 5 classifications: The brand name, the shopping experience, the shipment experience, the service experience, and long-lasting commitment. Scores are compared throughout our whole dealership network, and those dealerships who attain above-average rankings as evaluated by their consumers are acknowledged with 5 Rivet Dealership status.
A Quality Group of Inspectors, Auditors, and Software Application Designers
Stroll the Airstream assembly line today and you’ll see digital tools and modern-day innovation integrated together with the standard hand-built procedures we have actually used for years. Auditors work together with our production partners and inspect that whatever is going efficiently. They guarantee that work guidelines are followed, correct methods are utilized, which elements and parts are set up properly. At the end of the line, Inspectors close the quality circle, with a point-by-point quality check that guarantees every system works and every home appliance is operating effectively. Our Inspectors turn every switch and switch on the a/c unit and fridge. They run the fans, the heating system, and the hot water heater. They even light the gas home appliances– a procedure that exceeds the market requirement of merely pressure checking the gas lines with air.
Our quality group is prepared to action in and help whenever they find abnormalities, and they track problems on digital tablets that continually feed information as much as the quality group for analysis. What secondhand to be a tiresome pen-and-pencil procedure that took days to look at and evaluate, today occurs almost instantly. Any problems on the assembly line are rapidly captured and corrected, and when patterns emerge the group can rapidly rally a service.
A software application group within Airstream’s Quality Department develops and constantly updates the apps utilized by the auditors and inspectors, producing lists and treatments that offer the group higher flexibly and lets them focus more on the production procedure. The software application group consists of Airstream partners who began their professions on the production flooring. That experience provides a direct understanding of our complicated production procedure and fantastic insight into the requirements of the quality group.
Digital Work Recommendations Guarantee Precise Understanding Sharing
While Auditors and Inspectors manage the procedure, our production associates strive captivating, setting up elements, running pipes, electrical wiring harnesses, and pipes, and structure furnishings, walls, and storage compartments. New works with and long time partners alike take advantage of digitized work guidelines that describe the complex detailed treatments needed to construct these renowned Recreational vehicles.
Those work guidelines are prepared by an internal group of technical authors with broad understanding throughout all our production procedures. As brand-new functions are included and brand-new elements are integrated, the group constantly updates the work guidelines to keep them existing. Kiosks stationed around our production plants offer simple access to this understanding base, that include images and videos that show correct setup methods and show the quality requirements we go for. In this method, we construct quality into each system from the minute we start work.
State-of-the-Art Production Facilities
Airstream opened a brand-new Travel Trailer Production Center in early 2020. From producing adequate area for parts and product storage to setting out an assembly line with the built up understanding of more than 90 years of producing proficiency, this brand-new center was constructed with quality in mind. As a result, our visiting coach assembly line likewise got a brand-new house in the area left by travel trailers. In both cases, more square video led to more space for partners to expand and concentrate on the job at hand, more space for storage (which utilized to be found in storage facilities throughout town), and brand-new innovation executions. While the business is still devoted to hand-made workmanship, producing more area for advanced tools has actually permitted a few of the more complicated, repeatable procedures to be automated– things like drilling holes for rivets and marking structural pieces. This maximizes partners to concentrate on the comprehensive jobs that can just be done by human hands.
In numerous methods, Airstream’s production procedure hasn’t altered much given that the early days of the business. Nevertheless, what has actually altered is the method we track, evaluate, and enhance that procedure. Airstream utilizes digital tools and data-driven objectives to provide industry-best quality and guarantee that every recreational vehicle that leaves their center measures up to consumer expectations.
Airstream’s dedication to quality is what sets us apart from other recreational vehicle makers. We take our consumers’ trust seriously and are devoted to producing the greatest quality travel trailers and motorized Recreational vehicles. From our training procedure to the quality group and making use of digital tools, Airstream is constantly wanting to measure up to creator Wally Byam’s guarantee to not make modifications, just enhancements as we pursue guaranteeing every consumer strikes the roadway in an item they can be pleased with.
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