RANDY Then it basically leaves and moves over into the paint shop.

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Terence Johnson
5 years ago
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1 KIA Motors Manufacturing Georgia Today on Fast Forward, we re visiting the west side of the state, West Point to be exact, looking for another great Georgia company for this episode. So we uh oh great. Our van broke down. How are we ever going to find a company to profile now? Wait a second! Welcome to another episode of Fast Forward. Today we re visiting Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia in West Point. And to go along with being one of the biggest industrial projects ever undertaken in the state, they ve also got a pretty huge sign. They're the second largest channel letters in the world. That s what you need when your factory is 1 mile long with 2 million square feet of shop space, and what it takes to make this many cars. How many you ask? We re running about 360,000 units outta here a year, about one every minute That s Randy Jackson, and he s kind of important to this operation. But let s find out how to turn this into this. Tell us how to make a car. The process really begins with the steel coils. They're delivered to our stamping shop. And you're stamping out doors, hoods, trunk lids. And then those go over to the next shop called the weld shop, and there each of those body parts are welded together by hundreds of robots. And that is the neatest place in the whole plant. Then it basically leaves and moves over into the paint shop. 1

2 Where it's spray painted by robots. And it transfers over to the assembly shop. In the general assembly shop all the other parts are added in. You're putting the seats in, you're putting the carpet in, you're putting the headliners in, you're putting tail lights, headlights. All of those things come together and then we send the vehicle out to the test track. Test track? Little over two miles around. Checks everything noise, checks vibrations, checks handling, comes back into the site, takes a shower- bath, checks the water, dries off. And from there it goes either by rail or by truck to our dealers. Nice! And can we go back to that test track? More info on that, please. Well as soon as the car comes off the line we're the first people to get it. So can we test our broken down van on the track? (Laughs) Unfortunately, and I have had many, many requests, but we cannot put our car on the test track. Figured. In any case, this is a pretty cool job being the first person to check out every aspect of the car, from the tires to the transmission. And speaking of that We re teaching a transmission how to be a transmission. And that relies on some engineering, because car transmissions use something called the transfer of energy. You see, a transmission transmits energy from the engine to the wheels. And it uses a simple machine, in this case gears, to help with the process. 2

3 Gears are wheels and axles that have teeth. Not those kind of teeth. These kind of teeth. And they mesh with teeth on another gear. This can be used to not only change the direction of motion, but can also magnify the force when syncing gears of different sizes, the same way bicycles become easier or harder to pedal when you change gears. Okay, testing brand new cars on a 2- mile track is a pretty cool job. What else do the folks around here do? Production team members can do a variety of different positions here within our assembly process. Then we have a whole other group of people who are supporting. And what do you do? I'm a safety specialist here at Kia Motors. Another word for this type of work is ergonomics. So what does an ergonomist do? Ergonomics is the work of watching other people work, and that's good work if you can get it. Watching other people work! Sign me up for some of that! Even though, believe it or not, this job requires a background in biology. Shonna? The biology classes relate to how bodies are put together and as that relates to humans it helps me with biomechanics, which is an important part of ergonomics. Biomechanics is the engineering side of the human body. So when we think of a joint, it's a lever. So it's really a human body from the mechanical standpoint. Biomechanics. Okay. By the way, this place isn t exactly what I was expecting. Isn t factory work supposed to be dirty and repetitive? 3

4 Some people might think that if you're working on an assembly line in a factory you're going to do the exact same job over and over again all day. And that's just not true. It s not redundant. It s not what people think about manufacturing. I think one misconception is that it's really dirty, and KIA is the cleanest factory I've been in. And? Some people are really surprised at the amount of robotics that we have inside our facility. Yeah, I m one of those people. For example in our weld shop alone we have more than 280 robots that are joining all these body panels together. So it's really important to be able to interact with the robots, be able to program them, or update, or make changes in order to update the manufacturing process here. And a lot of schools have robotics clubs that can help with those skills. But let s be honest, those clubs are, well what s the word? I think it is true that the robotics club is for nerds. That s it! But the thing that people forget is that nerds run the world. As soon as you get out of high school and college nerds run the world. Hmmm. Never thought of it that way. Anything else we should know? 4

5 Kia's a good company to work with, the benefits are very good, it's a dynamic job, the people I work with are great. What I enjoy most about my job is working with the people. And we're going to be here a long, long time. So this is not just one generation. It will be multiple generations that will be able to enjoy that. This is the best place I ve ever worked. It sure sounds like it. And if we can fix our van, or maybe borrow one of those sweet Sorentos, we ll find even more great jobs on the next episode of Fast Forward. 5

"4th Marine Division post office on Iwo Jima," Feb. 21, 1945 (6 min, 20 sec)

Audio courtesy Library of Congress (Marine Corps Combat Recordings LWO 5442 r3b5) "4th Marine Division post office on Iwo Jima," Feb. 21, 1945 (6 min, 20 sec) How many pieces of mail would you say is handled