Plant Tour: Where Tiffin Motorhomes Are Born

Monday, 18 February (Part II)
Camp Tiffin — Red Bay, Alabama

I started writing about our day and the tour in the previous post … if you haven’t read it, it’s worth taking a peek to check out the photos of a ‘76 Allegro, one of the early motorhomes built at the plant.

Now for the plant tour. We joined four other people to see how a motorhome is born at Tiffin’s main assembly plant. We started out in the cabinetry area, which is located in what used to be the cotton warehouse for the gin operated by the Tiffins. As Harold put it, “they didn’t tear down the buildings, they just re-purposed them.”

I would like to have given you a step-by-step tour of the process, but that’s not how the two-hour tour went. That was a tiny bit disappointing. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see the work that goes into building a house on wheels. So my photos will pretty much be in the order in which we walked through the huge facility.

Assembled coaches lined up and ready to go to the paint plant in Belmont, Mississippi.

On the positive side, we were right there with the workers, not kept at a distance. There were Phaetons and Allegro Busses on the production lines today. And we saw one Zephyr, too. Breezes were being manufactured on a separate line. Each coach is assigned a number, and all the bits and pieces for that coach carry that same identifying number, including all the cabling that goes into the coach. This ensures the installation of the right parts in a motorhome — especially important when specific options are exercised, thus changing the standard build.

From what Harold told us, it takes three weeks to get a coach ready for shipment — 5 days at the main assembly plant, 5 days at the paint plant, and 5 days in final finishing. (I am not positive of the last five days, so if someone knows otherwise, let me know.) That time frame changes to 3½-days x 3 for the Breeze. If you order a Tiffin, you will have your coach in two months from when you place the order. Another tidbit — the production rate has been brought up from about 3/day (during the recent economic downturn) to 12/day. That’s a lot of coaches going out the door!

(You can click any of the photos to see bigger versions in the online gallery. There are some additional photos in the gallery that I did not post here.)

Some of the 1,500 Tiffin employees are skilled carpenters responsible for building the cabinetry
used in the motorhomes. On the left is the “Galley Cell” where the kitchen units are built.
On the right is where they prepare wood panels by gluing together strips of hardwood.

The “overhead cell” (left) builds the cabinets that are attached to the ceiling.
Pre-routed trim pieces come to this shop to be cut out and prepared for staining.

In addition to using Ford, Freightliner, and Spartanburg chassis, Tiffin manufactures the
PowerGlide chassis. Only a few of these chassis are built because of the demand of production.

Prepping a Cummins engine for installation.

A closer look at a Cummins engine installed in a chassis.

All tricked out, these chassis are ready to placed into the manufacturing line.

Dropped in place, the plywood flooring is secured to the frame.

The foam insulation for the roof is bonded to luan paneling and grooves and niches
for wiring and aluminum frame pieces are cut out using a computer-operated router.

The top photo shows the luan paneling with the foam underneath it.
Bottom left is a Phaeton 40QTH roof with the wiring and aluminum frame in place.
Bottom Right is a roof with the skin placed over the insulation; the dome satellite,
AC units, antenna, and fans are already installed.

The tile flooring is in place; the lavatory is next to go in.
interesting to see that most of the interior elements are mounted
before the shell of the motorhome is put in place.

The shell is in place; lots more work to do!

One of the bedroom slides is ready to be installed, and we get to see it being swung into place.

The face cap … outside and inside.

One of the things not manufactured by Tiffin is the windshield.
They are made in Turkey, which has a big bus manufacturing industry
and the technology to curve the edges of these big windshields.

This department prepares the wiring that goes into the motorhomes.
The machine to the left of the woman cuts the wiring at pre-designated lengths.
She then loops them in bundles and places them on carts (one cart per coach).
The plastic jackets on the wiring are stamped with the ID of the coach they are
intended for, as well as the purpose for which they are to be used.

The coils of cables on the rack are laid out on a series of spindles with numbers on the
panel corresponding to specific positions in the coach; the cables are then bundled together.

The protective diamond shield is placed on the front of the coach once it has been
painted. Next, the air bubbles are squeegeed out to present a crystal clear finish.

I understand we could have stayed on after the tour to wander around at will. We didn’t quite get that at the time, and thought Harold meant that we were welcome to go into the finished coaches that were at the various quality control stations, or those parked on what they deem the “yellow brick road” outside. In any event, Mui was anxious to pick up our Phaeton from Bruce Deaton’s paint shop. And I was overwhelmed by the “beehive activity” and noise around me. So, we’ll do self-guided tour the next time … as I am sure there will be a next time.