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[Music] welcome to Corvette today the podcast
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that talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett MC and DJ at one of the largest Corvette weekends
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in the country Corvette Fun Fest president of the Corvette club of Kansas City Missouri and radio disc jockey at
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the number one radio station in Kansas City for over 40 years here's Steve Garrett
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[Music] thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about
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everything Corvette and the only current podcast dedicated to Corvette I'm your
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Corvette enthusiasts from around the world my guest on today's show is the quality launch manager and more recently
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the Vehicle Systems engineer for GM and Corvette now I know you're probably saying to yourself what exactly is a
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quality launch manager and a Vehicle Systems engineer well he's going to explain that to you and how it relates
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to Corvette he's been featured on Corvette videos namely the most outstanding Savage geese video about
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Corvette production his name is Jeff Brown Jeff welcome to Corvette today
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thanks for having me great to have you on the show buddy first of all let's talk about you Jeff let's talk about
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your childhood where you grew up your siblings and did you come from a car family sure good question so I actually
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was an only child which I think a lot of the people that I work with point that out pretty quickly to me as you grew up
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and a military family so I've never really lived in one place for more than five years my entire life and I've
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really enjoyed that upbringing because you're always going to a new place a new town meet new people and those skills
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have transferred to me as an adult today as far as being from a car family my parents they're airplane enthusiasts my
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dad was an F-15 pilot so that's what kept us so mobile when I was younger but on my mom's side of the family yeah I
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definitely came from a line of Gearheads so all my cousins when I was growing up had Chevelles and El Caminos and trucks
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of their own that I was exposed to at a very early age so seeing where I am today isn't much of a surprise that's
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cool so you did come from a Chevrolet family right yeah as I look back and kind of think how I was brought up I was
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probably drinking the Kool-Aid pretty young man my mother's side of their family they ran a farm so all of the
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support trucks that we ran were Chevrolets that's all I've owned and again the personal hot rods that we've
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been building over the years have been Chevy as well small blocks Big Blocks we've been fans so again it's a pretty
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natural fit for me to be able to do this for a living fantastic now when did you know you were a car guy and was
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Chevrolet your car from the get-go um it probably was so I've known I was a
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car guy for as long as my memory has served me and my parents have definitely confirmed that as well that when I was a
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toddler I think one of my favorite stories that my mom tells me and again this has passed my memory I was coming down the stairs into the garage and
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tripped rolled underneath our Oldsmobile at the time and they panicked they thought I was going to panic as well
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when they looked underneath the car they saw me just staring at the engine and poking at stuff and they had a pretty good idea at that point in time that I
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might have a future being a Gearhead myself well and I know that in previous videos that I've seen you knew all the
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car brands growing up as a little boy and you love the Like a Rock marketing from Chevrolet I did yeah but again
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another story that my folks tell when I was young enough to just see over the sill out the window of the car to other
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vehicles nearest at a stoplight all I could see were hubcaps and apparently I was able to identify that shape to the
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car that it was on and to my parents surprise is because my dad wasn't there with a car encyclopedia telling me what
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was there I just picked up the different names and I guess it was a natural fit that's cool
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our guy influence your career path when you went on to college uh sure so that
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passion really drove my entire academic career at a young age like pieced together pretty quickly that what I
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wanted to do as a car guy was get the opportunity to engineer the cars right so not just work on them I enjoy
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spinning wrenches a lot myself but to be able to influence their designs and affect how customers interact with the
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cars that I cared about that led me through a very stem focused academic career through high school so you know
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going through different robotics competitions and calculus and things of that nature and then as far as getting into school in University it was no
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different let's talk about University for a minute Jeff what did you study at college and what jobs did you take once
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you graduated college before you got to General Motors yeah so I went to Texas A M University down in College Station
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Texas I studied mechanical engineering and I actually stayed there and got my bachelor's and Master's both
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consecutively I decided you know what I want to learn a little bit more and I'm probably not going to want to to come back to school once I'm working so let's
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knock them both out together and I think the most pivotal decision I made while in school was serving on our Formula SAE
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race car team so basically that's a Collegiate competition around the world where students come together to build a
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car over the course of a year and compete and race with it and I got the opportunity to serve as the project
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manager and technical director for that vehicle which largely got me the exposure to General Motors and to get me
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into a job doing this professionally when I was in high school again I was pretty clear that I wanted to get into
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the automotive field looking at all of the universities across the country admittedly when I was younger I was much
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more of a truck guy so my first vehicle that I cut my teeth on is as far as wrenching was a Jeep Cherokee that I've
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since built into this massive rock crawler that I take across the country and run the hardest Trails I can find I
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was looking for a combination of a strong mechanical engineering school that also had an off-road club and
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believe it or not they kind of Narrows the list down quite a bit and I found Texas A M off-road club and during my
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junior year of high school when I went to visit the university I went and met some of the folks that participated on
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that team and I definitely found my group and of course the university itself had an outstanding program so the
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decision was pretty easy for me as soon as I made that visit I canceled the rest of my applications and just full steam
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ahead down to College Station very cool great story well buddy let's take our first break when we get back we're going
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833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me today is Jeff Brown the quality launch manager and more recently the
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Vehicle Systems engineer for GM and Corvette in the second segment we're going to talk about Jeff's Works career
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and how we got to General Motors Jeff we talked a little bit about your jobs right out of college give me the story
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about your transition from the job you had into General Motors sure so when I was in college I took full Advan
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advantage of getting any internship that I could right so I had a lot of fun working for a variety of different
12:20
companies doing different things just to see if I'd be interested or not so I actually started out doing some material
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science research for Boeing I also went to Peterbilt company in Denton Texas to put semi trucks together and I even
12:32
spent a summer as a field service electrical engineer servicing the Midwest going to various power stations
12:38
and learning that's exactly what I did not want to do for the rest of my life and I got very lucky that the final
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internship that I was able to secure was with General Motors at the Milford Proving Ground as we've touched on it's
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pretty evident I'm a car guy I love this stuff and to arrive at The Proving Ground for General Motors for the first
12:57
time was surreal and a shock I mean you're talking about the largest Automotive Proving Ground in the world
13:03
with around 145 miles of testing roads that are specifically engineered to
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bring out the best and worst from all of our products so that first summer working on full-size truck basically
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durability testing them and see where they broke and been improving them I was sold that was the end I knew I had no
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chance I would have to come back to work for GM for a living that's fantastic now let's talk about how you got into GM and
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what jobs you had when you first got there and then how did you get to Corvette sure so as I mentioned I was
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able to work with our College race car team and that got me the visibility to get an interview with GM and got me that
13:40
first internship and also as I mentioned my initial interests were largely in the full-size truck space because that's
13:46
where I spent a lot of time growing up spent a lot of time around them I knew the products very well so my first job
13:52
was as a Driveline development engineer and I really enjoyed that time because it was a really Hardware focused role
13:59
where I was constantly in the garage with the engineers and the technicians tearing Vehicles down putting new
14:05
components on them and it also gave me an opportunity for a lot of seat time I just love being behind the wheel of different products and seeing what their
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strengths are and just general vehicle performance is something that I really appreciate so that first year year and a
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half or so I was focused at Milford testing those vehicles and also getting to do different ride trips where we'd go
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to the sand dunes for example and evaluate the off-road prowess of the vehicles as well as their on-road
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capabilities so great start really enjoyed that opportunity and that led me to the next assignment as assistant
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program engineering manager on the full-size SUV vehicle so your Tahoes
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Yukon Suburbans Escalades that we build in Arlington Texas I got the opportunity
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to work with that team while they were introduced to the plant for the first time so that zoomed me out a bit from
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the fun of Hardware exposure and seat time and more of the nitty-gritty of program management right the business
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side and the launch execution of bringing pre-production vehicles from
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the relative comfort of headquarters where the entire team is able to be there to support into a new
15:10
manufacturing footprint and getting that other team up to speed and bringing those new products into light in a very
15:16
condensed timeline so that way we can get new products into Market as quickly as possible very cool now you more
15:22
recently or the Vehicle Systems engineer for General Motors and now you're the quality launch manager talk about those
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two titles and exactly what those entail excellent yeah so after I did that truck
15:34
work a Corvette opportunity came up and those are very attractive roles so I raised my hand as soon as I saw that in
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the first job that I got in Corvette was actually as what's called an IRT culture that's an issue Resolution Team coach
15:46
here and I was assigned to Bowling Green assembly here in Kentucky for the Z06 launch so there's obviously a period of
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time before the vehicles are available for customers where we get factories up to speed on various brand new models and
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get everything going before we're able to be at full production run rate I was serving the chassis and active thermal
16:06
space specifically in that IR key role so everything on the vehicle basically the dirty site right the structure
16:12
steering suspension breaks power train cooling air conditioning as well all of those components of the car were my
16:19
responsibility when those z06s were coming down the line for the first time so you can imagine the mix between
16:26
intensity and reward because there's so much going on at once and there's a lot of pressure to make sure that you're
16:32
able to deliver from your space but I absolutely loved it and really thrive in
16:37
this launch type environment about a year and a half into serving as the RT I got the opportunity to expand my
16:43
responsibility to take on as you mentioned the vehicle system engineering role as well so actually serve both
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those roles concurrently where I maintained every vehicle that came down the line in the launch Cadence as well
16:56
as own the business aspect and the current product aspect of the entire architecture so as a Vehicle Systems
17:04
engineer you really represent about 40 to 50 Engineers around the globe that own the individual components within the
17:11
subsystems that I just mentioned and there's a ton of different deliverables that you got to stay on top of within
17:17
all of those different components so that even includes different warranty items if that might be the case and also
17:22
pre-production design items if that's an option as well in addition to the manufacturing responsibilities so I
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enjoyed being able to maintain presence here in the plant as well as being able
17:32
to expand to the larger vehicle as a whole wow that's amazing part of your job an important part of your job was
17:39
getting back to the design Engineers about how Bowling Green assembly plant installs what they've designed you were
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essentially like a conduit between Bowling Green assembly plant and the design Engineers right yeah you have a
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very good understanding of my job responsibility to be honest with you as an engineer having tangible skills and
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wrenching experience personally and professionally that was crucial in being able to convey some of the challenges
18:05
that we might see live with tangible assembly back to some of the engineering teams that work in different spaces that
18:11
may not be as close to the product as I was so I felt unique suited and in a unique position to help the team succeed
18:18
because I had so much exposure to everything live while also having to maintain a really good understanding of
18:24
the virtual presence of the vehicle and how we engineer within those different models and things you're the perfect person for the job Jeff that's for sure
18:31
I appreciate that I'll send that along to my managers you got it tell them you need a raise Jeff outline a typical day for you at
18:38
the bowling green assembly plant sure so that as you can imagine the probably the most cliche answer is there is no
18:43
typical day but that couldn't be more true I'll speak to that as an IRT VSC in a launch window we have scheduled build
18:51
weeks where the new cars are introduced to the factory when we're not in those build ways there's an enormous amount of
18:57
preparation for a variety of different aspects so material availability and presentation is probably Paramount in
19:04
ensuring that you can actually assemble the cars but you also have to manage any potential design or process changes that
19:11
can help iterate the product or process to improve it in the long run so it's really a balance of the essentials the
19:18
foundation of putting a car together as well as introducing these incremental improvements as the launch Cadence
19:23
matures so that really took a lot of my time and of course when it's showtime and it's a build week it's all hands on
19:30
deck I might be unique in just kind of enjoying the firefighting aspect when you're there with your team and it's
19:35
happening live you really have no one to rely on but yourself so you have to be very resourceful and creative understand
19:41
your team and your capabilities of what you can do to solve these problems as they're happening because there's so
19:46
much depending on all of this running smoothly and successfully amazing well buddy let's take our final break when we
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come back in segment three we're going to talk more about the Bowling Green assembly plant and the C8 Corvette coming up next on Corvette today
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this is the Corvette Today podcast with Steve Garrett
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thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette brought to you by
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wheelcraft summer is here and so is car show season you want your Corvette looking its best dress it up with bright
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Chrome or black chrome wheels visit wheelcraft.com and learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can
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refinish your wheels or do a wheel exchange and you get a five-year warranty visit wheelcraft.com today or
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call them 833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett
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with me is quality launch manager Jeff Brown Jeff in this third segment let's talk about the Bowling Green Assembly
23:59
Plant GM spent a lot of money transitioning Bowling Green from the C7 to the C8 let's talk about that
24:05
transition and about the differences between the build lines from then up to now sure so as you can imagine going
24:12
from a front engine architecture to a rear engine architecture for the first time wasn't unbelievable undertaking and
24:19
a lot of the conversations focused around what it took to make the car different and how to architect from that
24:24
perspective but again as you'd imagine the assembly process is just as critical because if you can't put the car
24:29
together then you have nothing more than rendering so back for the 2020 launch for the C8 Stingray the amount of effort
24:36
put into the lines to completely re-architect the plant was mind-boggling working and talking with the team
24:43
members that supported that live on a daily basis honestly it's such a Herculean task it's amazing to see how
24:49
smooth they were able to run today that's really cool Jeff talk about the C8 Stingray and transitioning into the
24:56
Z06 and then the upcoming e-ray as well yeah so that was the first job that brought me to Bowling Green assembly
25:02
admittedly that was intended to be a one-year assignment a few years back and you can see how well that's lasted as
25:08
I'm still here working on a daily basis I just love what we get to do but as you can imagine when you introduce a new
25:15
architecture into a plant you have to have enough foresight into what the architecture is going to include to be
25:21
able to be prepared from the get-go so when the CH Stingray was brought here as
25:26
I just mentioned it was still a massive undertaking to get that single car to come down the line right after C7 just
25:33
because they're so fundamentally different in the way that they're engineered and assembled we had similar
25:39
iterations coming into the wide body variants of Z06 and e-rays so again working on Z06 I was boots on the ground
25:45
sort of the tip of the spear and seeing what that looked like the lines themselves have to be prepared for all
25:51
of the new features and differences in them so when we brought Z06 here the line was moving with stingrays coming
25:58
down on a daily basis we didn't get the opportunity to turn the line off and say well let's see how this fits here or how
26:04
does this operation feel we had to have all of our homework done so when that first car hit the line we were ready to
26:10
go so in addition as I mentioned there's some new content for example the center front radiator we knew that was going to
26:17
be coming in for Z06 it was a requirement to ensure our thermal capacity was there that station was
26:23
already already allocated down one of our chassis lines we just didn't need to turn it on until that variant was
26:28
introduced to the plant wow that is part of the process of launch is getting not
26:34
only those new features turned on for the first time but also getting repetitions for us as a launch Team and
26:39
The Operators that are going to do it on a daily basis so the entire activity is very comprehensive of what needs to be
26:44
accomplished that also of course carried into the e-rays that we're building today it was from my perspective a good
26:51
transition that we got exposure to Z06 first I've seen the wide body proportions running that down the line
26:57
The Wider wheels and tires Steve as you know you've seen the rear wheels and tires on e-rain Z06 are awesome and
27:05
they're almost hilarious with their Dimensions the amount of grip that they provide that's amazing I know a really
27:10
important part of the Bowling Green assembly plant build line is the integration of the stingray the Z06 and
27:15
then also the exports talk about that philosophy behind the different variants coming down the line all at the same
27:22
time which is pretty amazing it is and it also definitely adds some workload to us as you can imagine so yeah the our
27:29
export exposure is greater than it's ever been this is the first time that we're building right hand drive variants
27:34
down the production line and sending them around the world as an Enthusiast it's very exciting because now you're
27:40
seeing people globally sing the Praises of the car that we all know is so amazing and now it has the opportunity
27:47
to get into the hands of more drivers that was something we were adamant about early on in the scoping of C8 wanting to
27:53
get the car out because we knew how World Class it would be that it'd be a shame to limit it to only left-hand Drive markets and it's always fun when
27:59
I'm taking new people through the factory and they see just the dash or the instrument panel and they see the steering column on the right hand side
28:05
everyone is very surprised by that it's like yep same line those all of those different unique features have to be
28:11
assemblable in the exact same way that we've been doing to this point so again it's really a function of preparation
28:17
and doing your homework to know what you intend to offer and then ensure that you
28:22
have the capabilities of some doing that's amazing I recently at the NCM Michelin bash went through the plant
28:29
again on a tour and it was so cool to see right hand drive cars just sitting there you see them in pictures when you
28:35
see it in person it's just really really cool yeah you do a double check don't you yeah absolutely also you got a new
28:41
job now Jeff you're a quality launch manager talk about that and the transition that you made from the
28:47
Vehicle Systems engineer to this current job yeah this has been a really fun transition and it happened relatively
28:53
recently and fairly quickly again working as a Vehicle Systems engineer your homeroom is really focused on the
28:59
product side of the house so as I mentioned I was in a unique spot being a liaison for product engineering in a
29:04
manufacturing environment whereas this new role serving as a quality launch manager my homeroom is now the
29:11
manufacturing footprint it's really exciting opportunity for me because I get to zoom out and take on the entire
29:17
automobile instead of just focusing within the chassis and active thermal space as I've been doing before so I'm
29:23
looking forward to seeing different aspects of the vehicle that I was aware of but wasn't as focused on previously
29:29
and now I get to work with an unbelievable team of quality Engineers that have a lot of experience in this
29:35
space as well to ensure all of our future products are as good as we're building today well congratulations on
29:40
the new job for sure buddy thanks Dave I'm loving it talk about some of the biggest challenges you've had with C8
29:45
production how's it being addressed among the workers and the team Builders yeah I think the biggest challenge that
29:51
I always harp on is also what makes us so good and that's really the complexity that we offer and that's not an accident
29:58
it's very intentional as we just mentioned we want to get the car to as many customers as we can but we also
30:03
want to offer as many options as possible and of course that introduces a pain Point here because the easiest
30:09
thing that we could do to build a car would be the Henry Ford mentality if you could have any color you want as long as
30:15
it's black but as you notice at the Corvette owner yourself your expectation is going to be a little bit higher than
30:20
that what that takes it's a full court press from the entire our team in organization Supply Chain management as
30:27
well as introducing efficiencies where we're able to so the way I look at being successful here is from the product side
30:34
of the house to engineer as many efficiencies into the vehicle as you can not have unnecessary redundancies and
30:41
then from the manufacturing side of the house it's kind of more of a function of innovation to absorb these greater
30:47
workloads in the breadth of the portfolio that we offer that sounds really really cool that's amazing Jeff
30:53
let's talk about the engine build Center I know somewhere down the road we're going to have the Z06 engine build experience in a video I saw in eight
31:01
hours you can build 2.75 engines how does one become a Z06 Master engine
31:07
builder yes as you can imagine a very prestigious opportunity with in the factory here and one that a lot of
31:13
people pursue but of course it's not as easy as just raising your hand wanting to do it because then we'd have a line
31:19
going out the door people would be building lt6 engine of course with the lt6 itself it's in a
31:26
different realm as far as engine assembly it is literally a race car engine so as you're aware Steve we're
31:32
going into GT3 racing next year with Corvette and the lt6 that supplies those Vehicles come from the performance build
31:39
Center here in Bowling Green wow yeah of course it's got some modifications after the fact to fit the spec of the
31:45
different series which they compete but the bones of that engine are what you have in your Z06 going to work every day
31:52
or going to the track on the weekends which when you zoom out and think about what that means that's pretty special
31:57
that you're really driving a street legal race car on a daily basis again all that Prestige makes it a very
32:03
attractive position but we have to make sure that the individuals who put these together have the skill sets to put a
32:08
successful engine together this isn't a hard and fast syllabus if you will to be credentialed but we typically ask the
32:14
engine builders to work for about a year in other engine assemblies so here at the PBC we also put together lt4 engines
32:20
and LT ones for Camaros so lt4 course for the Cadillac portfolio the awesome Escalade B and our ct5b Blackwing giving
32:28
operators exposure on those engines then they'll get the opportunity of course there has to be some Manpower
32:34
availability it's not just you want to do it you get the chance there has to be an opening and a need you Apprentice for
32:39
roughly six to eight weeks so that is working with a current lt6 Master engine builder to understand all the specific
32:47
Precision needed for that engine itself and then at that point in time of course after being able to prove your own
32:53
individual competence can we cut you loose to put your own lt6s together and have that sacred nameplate on the back
32:59
of the engine in the car which is of course Very Special they take a lot of pressure absolutely right now I know
33:06
each Z06 engine has dynoed for 20 minutes right after assembly run through that process for me and what happens if
33:13
an engine doesn't pass the dyno test yeah good question so for those that don't know lt6 again being a race car
33:18
engine gets a lot of white glove treatment so we send every single hand bill lt6 engine off for a 20 minute Dyno
33:26
break and run so that process as you can imagine is very tight very scripted so after the engine is built and passes all
33:33
the quality Gates here at the PVC it's sent over to a separate facility where it's plumbed put into the dyno cell and
33:40
the first movement that the engine feels is actually just motoring of the dyno before it's even fired just make sure
33:45
the rotating assembly is passing all of our quality Gates and it's hugely instrumented as well we're pulling a ton
33:51
of data off the engine as it's exposed to the dyno to the first time as a health check after that point in time
33:57
fire it off and it runs through a very specific and it's been iterated over the years of ramped break-in schedule so as
34:05
you can imagine race car engines break in is very crucial and imperative to good performance out of the engine and
34:12
this script basically ramps in different engine RPMs but interestingly after each Plateau there's a slight relaxation
34:19
window and as an engineer I find these things fascinating because that way was largely advised by our metallurgists to
34:25
allow for some bearing relaxation as it entered the next Cadence of the engine dynamometer test so after it finishes
34:32
this ramp it gets to sing with its full lungs we do a full load full watt pull
34:38
we just absolutely open it up anyone who knows anything about these cars whether you've heard it live or just have heard
34:44
every video on YouTube as I have her voice is beautiful so in the dinosaur it's absolutely screaming and then the
34:51
final step of that test is to motor it down the same way we motored it up and that's again a final health check to
34:57
look at all the sensors on the engine before we take it off and then the final step or the quality gates to do a final
35:03
inspection on it and we even cut open the oil filter to identify any potential contaminants give it a fresh oil send it
35:10
back here to the general assembly line and we put it in the car and as one of the guys who was very focused on the
35:16
engine line during the Z06 launch I always loved seeing the lt6 itself because the heat shields around the
35:22
exhaust manifold were already rainbowed they'd already had one hard pulling them you could see it and just I don't know
35:27
even though the car is fresh the engines already had a nice pull and it's ready to go that's really cool I'd love to see
35:32
one of those Dyno tests and it's really cool that you cut open the oil filter too yes that's really neat you know
35:38
Corvette would be nothing Jeff without the pride and the enthusiasm of every single team member talk about that and
35:45
what sets the Bowling Green assembly plant apart from everybody else yeah there's something intangible in the air
35:50
here and I think that's really what made it a no-brainer for me to extend my tenure indefinitely there's the unspoken
35:58
understanding that this is the American Supercar and everyone that comes into work on a daily basis day in and day out
36:05
you can feel it just the way that people speak around the jobs the way they speak around the car it really does feel like
36:12
more than just a paycheck and more than just a job because every car that rolls off this line is somebody's dream
36:18
because at the end of the day you don't necessarily have to have a Corvette to be able to get to work or get to school
36:24
this is a treat this is something that a lot of people have strived for their entire lives and that's well known at
36:29
every level of this organization in the plant and in the engineering teams that type of energy to come into every day is
36:36
very inspiring and makes us all bring our best foot forward to bring all that home again it's known amongst the team
36:42
but on a daily basis we have tours going through the factory as well and as you can imagine that's not common for every
36:48
GM manufacturing facility not everyone is asking to see how their commuter is
36:53
put together whereas every one of these cars is built for someone who's very enthusiastic so seeing the tours come
36:59
through on a daily basis and seeing everyone absolutely Marvel as to how we put the pieces of the puzzle together
37:05
that just keeps that energy thriving that's fantastic you can see the pride in the line I remember going through and
37:11
saying hi to some of these people while they were building you could see the pride just gleaming off their face yes
37:17
absolutely bloody thank you so much for taking the time to be on Corvette today this has been so much fun let's do it
37:22
again soon absolutely this has been a lot of fun I look forward to see when you come back out to Bowling Green thanks for listening to Corvette today
37:28
and please be sure to tell your family friends and other core of that enthusiasts about the Corvette Today podcast and thanks to our sponsors
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thanks again for listening to Corvette today [Music]