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The Company |
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Online Factory Tour |
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Welcome
to
Factory Five Racing... |
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Our
new Headquarters |
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We're
glad that you've taken a moment to tour our headquarters - we've been
growing so much, it's hard to keep up with our ever-expanding
facilities.
Since August 2001, we've
been actively working to consolidate the company into one
building. The first step to achieve that goal was to construct our
own building. We're still in Wareham, in the southeastern corner
of Massachusetts, but now we are located on Tow Road, a small road just
beyond the Wareham Industrial Park.
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Just a stone's throw from
the old buildings on Kendrick Road, the new facility started out with a
26,000 sq. ft. blueprint, almost doubling the square footage we had
utilized in the three former buildings combined. Now, we've grown
to 40,000 sq. ft., and we still don't have the entire company under one
roof, but we're getting closer. We're wondering if we'll ever have
enough space! |
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As
you enter the front door, you'll be immediately taken back by the size
of our tremendous showroom. This 1500 sq. ft. showpiece gives
us enough space to highlight all of our award winning component cars, a
couple of rolling chassis, some components, as well as some of our
employee cars. When the weather's clear, you'll see a few of the
employee's driving in their Factory Five's too. There are twelve
cars currently owned within the company. |
| The
Showroom |
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| Caroline
is at the reception desk and is happy to welcome you to Factory
Five. She ensures that everyone is greeted with a warm smile and
friendly hello. |
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Behind her, Kerri, Jessie, Sandra, and Tara ensure
that the company is running smoothly, and try to keep Mark and Dave busy
working on new products, more newsletters, and continued company
growth. |
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| Caroline
greets every customer |
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Kerri
and Tara |
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Jessie
is the newest member of the customer service team. |
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The tech support staff are against the back wall, and the
engineers are in the far corner. |
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| Nate
and Colby answer your questions |
Joe
is the tech support wonder boy |
Dave
R. spends time in marketing and engineering |
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get someone to give you a factory tour, and show you how we build each kit
personally and professionally. |
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| Let's
start off in the welding and molding areas. We've just added this
14,000 sq. ft. addition to the main building, so that these two core
departments enjoy first-rate accommodations. |
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| The
new frame jig in action |
Expanded
welding area |
Kris
is the frame jig expert |
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welders occupy the northeast corner, and are the model of
efficiency. Welding four frames a day, as well as all of the
components to support production (and your build) is a busy job, and one
of the toughest jobs in the company. These guys are our Marines,
and a few good men do the job of many, often before everyone else has
had a chance to grab a cup of coffee. Check out our updated frame
jigs. Lenny has been working with R&D specifically to update
our jigs and tooling, and it has paid off immeasurably in quality and
consistency. |
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| Kevin
welds side exhaust |
Lenny,
gets the job done where ever he goes |
Paul
checks each side exhaust, so you won't have to |
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We'll
pass through to the molding area, which is not yet completely
set-up. We're changing the focus of molding, and making it the
forefront of our technological advancements. In order to keep the
competition scrambling, and our overhead low, we've taken advantage of
the latest improvements in computer design and engineering, and
implemented them in this area.
A
cutting table is up and running and cuts all of our fiberglass cloth and
carpeting using the same CAD programming as is used to laser-cut our
steel and aluminum. |
Jerry
runs the automated cutting table |
| In the back of the room, a segregated area is
being readied for a robotic cutting arm, which will trim all fiberglass
bodies and panels smoothly and seamlessly in a matter of minutes. The arm should be installed and operational by mid-summer (2003).
In the mean time, Nate and the molding department make do offsite, the
last group to enter the new building. |
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| Entering
back into the main building, we are in the packaging /shipping and
inventory area. |
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| Kit
packs ready to go |
Danny
and Charlie in kit packaging |
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| You can
see all of the steel components waiting to be packaged up into
kits. The packaging team's jobs are not simple either.
Sorting out over a thousand components and boxing them into subsections,
in the sequential order you'll be using them in your build, is no easy
task. To complicate matters, they now also have to factor in
multiple different kits, shared parts, and challenging options.
They take great pride in their intolerance of back-orders and missing
components. Here, Mark Dougherty is bringing his previous quality
and manufacturing experience to bear as the new plant manager. |
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| Mark
D. oversees production and quality |
Rich
takes care of shipping and receiving |
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Chassis
Assembly is next, and here we'll round out our tour of the production
processes.
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| Chassis
Assembly area |
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| Scott and Dennis get completed frames in from the
painters, or powder coaters, and ensure that each aluminum piece, as
well as the bodies and panels, fit perfectly. If these components
don't fit, they will make sure they're not released to you, the
customer. Although the kits will still go through a full quality
evaluation prior to delivery, the guys in chassis assembly are the final
stop-gap of quality.
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| Scott
and Dennis are the one-two punch of chassis assembly |
Painted
frames ready for assembly |
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There are a bunch of
other guys and gals, all working tirelessly behind the scenes.
We'll introduce you to them later.
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Let's
peak inside R&D and see what they're working on.
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The
R&D area
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We can't go
too far in, or all of Jim and Jesper's secrets will be out of the bag,
but we'll assure you that it's exciting. New engineers, John and
Colby, also have a few tricks they are working on, and you'll surely see
them here first.
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| If you want to get a
closer look, give us a call. We'll be happy to give you a
personalized tour of the facility whenever you're ready to come by and
visit. Don't forget, we're open for tours until noon on Saturdays,
as well as until 5 pm every weekday! |
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Complete
and waiting for pick up |
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