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This information comes from a presentation made on on November 7th at the National Corvette Museum, made by Kai Spande, BGA Plant Manager to National Corvette Museum’s Corvette Club NCM Ambassadors.
Following screen print information is also thanks to Kia Spande, with the below information shared with us by jagamajajaran — who audio recorded the presentation.
Thank you both very much!
The Plant is currently making Stingrays, Grand Sports, Z06’s and ZR1’s.
BGA fairly recently changed from 4/10 schedule back to 5/8’s.
93 C7‘s being produced now per day (about 2,000 per month); rate of 11.5 per hour.
225 cars worth of painted parts coming out of paint shop ahead of those being installed on cars being produced (about 2 days of “painted panel storage”).
Complexity of C7 production:
107 steering wheel choices; 276 seat choices/options
2,990 total parts in one C7.
ZR1 specific information:
632 unique ZR1 parts.
ZR1 trans selections: about 30% manuals; 70% automatics.
ZR1 convertible compared to coupe production, “guessing now, about 1/3’s are ‘verts; 2/3’s are coupes.”
1,257, 2019 ZR1’s built through now; building them at a rate of less than 40 per week, with as we predicted and currently still reality, visible carbon fiber being the most constrained ZR1 part.
New paint shop specifics:
New paint shop reducing paint consumption usage by one-third ($2/3M savings per year). New paint shop has allowed us change colors more often for the assembly line process, so whereas previously the batches of colors of cars were typically 7-10 of the same color in a row, now we often change cars in a row to just two or three of the same color.
Now wet sanding every car, even the primer coat. Now we robotically sand every panel. Overspray goes into a bed with limestone, then most of that paint then recycled of the slugged off as dried paint.
Not painted within the Plant: ZR1 hood’s and its “shaker” parts, nor all C7 roofs, rear view mirrors, spoilers, rockers. However, do, within BGA, paint within the plant, all non-ZR1 hoods and non carbon fiber hoods.
Used to be, prior to last fall’s 13 week plant gut-n-rebuilt, parts within the plant were moved 70% via forklifts (big, expensive, safety issues; potential damage to parts), to now less than 30% of parts moved within the plan are moved by forklifts.
Performance Build Center:
It has been recently expanded, taking up some of the area where the old paint shop was.
When Kai came to BGA about 3 1/2 years ago, the Performance Build Center (PBC) build only half LT4’s that went into the Z06 built at the plant, i.e., there were 18/19 engines produced one shift. And there was only one PBC shift at that time.
Now LT4, LT5s, and LTAs for CT6’s are all being built within the PBC, e.g., now making 55 engines per day with two shifts.
Thank you again Kai for the information, Jag for recordings and sharing it with us. Here are some of the slides shown during that presentation.
Following screen print information is also thanks to Kia Spande, with the below information shared with us by jagamajajaran — who audio recorded the presentation.
Thank you both very much!
The Plant is currently making Stingrays, Grand Sports, Z06’s and ZR1’s.
BGA fairly recently changed from 4/10 schedule back to 5/8’s.
93 C7‘s being produced now per day (about 2,000 per month); rate of 11.5 per hour.
225 cars worth of painted parts coming out of paint shop ahead of those being installed on cars being produced (about 2 days of “painted panel storage”).
Complexity of C7 production:
107 steering wheel choices; 276 seat choices/options
2,990 total parts in one C7.
ZR1 specific information:
632 unique ZR1 parts.
ZR1 trans selections: about 30% manuals; 70% automatics.
ZR1 convertible compared to coupe production, “guessing now, about 1/3’s are ‘verts; 2/3’s are coupes.”
1,257, 2019 ZR1’s built through now; building them at a rate of less than 40 per week, with as we predicted and currently still reality, visible carbon fiber being the most constrained ZR1 part.
New paint shop specifics:
New paint shop reducing paint consumption usage by one-third ($2/3M savings per year). New paint shop has allowed us change colors more often for the assembly line process, so whereas previously the batches of colors of cars were typically 7-10 of the same color in a row, now we often change cars in a row to just two or three of the same color.
Now wet sanding every car, even the primer coat. Now we robotically sand every panel. Overspray goes into a bed with limestone, then most of that paint then recycled of the slugged off as dried paint.
Not painted within the Plant: ZR1 hood’s and its “shaker” parts, nor all C7 roofs, rear view mirrors, spoilers, rockers. However, do, within BGA, paint within the plant, all non-ZR1 hoods and non carbon fiber hoods.
Used to be, prior to last fall’s 13 week plant gut-n-rebuilt, parts within the plant were moved 70% via forklifts (big, expensive, safety issues; potential damage to parts), to now less than 30% of parts moved within the plan are moved by forklifts.
Performance Build Center:
It has been recently expanded, taking up some of the area where the old paint shop was.
When Kai came to BGA about 3 1/2 years ago, the Performance Build Center (PBC) build only half LT4’s that went into the Z06 built at the plant, i.e., there were 18/19 engines produced one shift. And there was only one PBC shift at that time.
Now LT4, LT5s, and LTAs for CT6’s are all being built within the PBC, e.g., now making 55 engines per day with two shifts.
Thank you again Kai for the information, Jag for recordings and sharing it with us. Here are some of the slides shown during that presentation.
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