Visions of victory

Fitting the radical new Vision into Victory Motorcycles’ production line took a concerted effort from the drawing board forward

by Tom Hammel

“Is this Heaven?”
“No, it’s Iowa.”
     — Field of Dreams

In “Field of Dreams,” Hollywood’s misty-eyed adaptation of W.P. Kinsella’s Iowa-based ode to baseball, leading man Kevin Costner has an epiphany in the film’s final scene. Costner’s heart-tugging revelation that “Heaven is where the heart is,” drives home the final runner of the film’s simple messages; do what you love, appreciate those around you, and if you build something great, people will come.

For decades, manufacturing companies have cropped up here and there across Iowa, growing right out of the corn to build great things. Why? Well, for one thing, Iowans are famously intelligent, honest, cheerful and hardworking — just ask one. When Polaris Industries looked around for a place to base its fledgling motorcycle division, Spirit Lake, Iowa filled the bill. Victory has been building bikes here since 1997.

“V” is for Victory
Today, the number of Victory motorcycles on the roadways of America doubles every two years. The company produces some motorcycles to sell in bike shops, but also builds bikes to order. For each of its five “base models,” the Vegas, Hammer, Kingpin, Arlen Ness Signature Series and Vision, there are hundreds of paint, hardware, suspension and exhaust variations that can be specified by customers. The Vegas alone has 16 handlebar configurations.

Victory engines are available in five different configurations from 100 to 106 cubic inches, mated to five- or six-speed transmissions.

Without a totally integrated computer tracking system based on VIN numbers, the level of product customization Victory provides would be impossible.

Victory’s Spirit Lake, Iowa plant performs frame and suspension welding, painting and final assembly. Engines, transmissions and other components are built in Osceola, Wisconsin and arrive daily. Like other manufacturers, a percentage of components and parts are outsourced to providers in the United States and globally.

Apples, and a big orange
Thanks in part to an alliance with custom bike pioneer Arlen Ness, Victory has carved a growing niche as “The New American Motorcycle.” Victory bikes are long, low and loud. Ness Series bikes are the first true factory custom bikes from a major manufacturer.

Having a successful formula for big v-twin cruisers, and the processes to build them, allowed Victory to set its sights on a new goal, designing a bike that would redefine long-distance touring.

From its earliest design sketches, the Vision was destined to be radically different from Victory’s other factory custom bikes. Not only was it more complex, it required different tooling and processes to build. From the outset, the $64,000 question was how this model could be shoehorned into Victory’s existing production process.

“We already had a complicated product line and we didn’t want to induce needless complexity into our manufacturing processes,” explains Joe Biehn, engineering and facilities manager for the Spirit Lake plant.

“So we knew we had to really think through our tooling needs and standardize as much as we could. We had figured out how to make one type of motorcycle, but the key here was how to integrate the Vision into what we were already making.”

This would be no small feat. Teams from engineering, production and maintenance were assembled to work together. As they designed the Vision, they identified flexible tooling and fixtures, integrated process controls and a “design to manufacturing template” approach as the tools needed to fit the Vision into Victory’s existing production.

“It was a major combined effort between engineering and our maintenance departments to set up the line and tool it up for the Vision,” says Joel Holland, plant services supervisor.

Nathan Hansen, a manufacturing engineer on the Vision project, was a key participant in this effort.

“As we developed the tooling for the Vision, we worked with Joel’s group to determine what could be made here and what should be outsourced,” Hansen explains. “We have the capacity here to do a wide variety of work, from large presses to fiberglass, so we had a lot of decisions to make based on time, budgets and staffing.”

Fitting the template
Victory’s manufacturing template is the master cellular design and assembly sequence of each process in building its motorcycles and other products, which include Polaris Ranger all terrain and utility vehicles.

Victory’s new motorcycles are designed to exploit the efficiencies designed into the production template. This includes such aspects as designing bike frames to maximize the capabilities of the company’s welding robots. Imposing a radical new product on these highly standardized processes could strain the entire system to failure.

And the Vision is the most radical thing on two wheels. Other Victory bikes have four or five painted parts; each Vision has 23. Before the Vision, all Victory bikes shared the same traditional tube steel frame. The Vision’s serpentine frame is cast aluminum.

So, how do you fit an apple into an orange production system?

“We didn’t want to limit the design if we didn’t have to, but we had to be able to put it together like our other products,” Biehn says.

By designing for the manufacturing template, the engineers were able to break the Vision’s components into pieces that could fit into the existing production flow.

“Once we did that, ‘all’ we had to deal with was the specific tooling that was unique to the Vision. We found we didn’t have to do a massive revamp of the whole assembly line,” Biehn adds.

Flexible fixtures
“One of the most foresightful things our engineering and maintenance teams did was to build quick-change tooling. We modularized fixtures to keep the tooling the same up to the point where it touches the unique part,” Biehn says. “That minimizes cost and setup.”

Many quick-change fixtures are tied to subassemblies. For example, the front and rear suspension subassembly areas are located across the production line from each other. Each has a flexible fixture that allows operators to quickly select and assemble the correct subassembly.

The front fork jig rotates to bring up different options. Need a different diameter fork for this Arlen Ness bike? Rotate the fixture and the correct jig clicks into place. Need a narrow fork for this Vegas? Rotate the fixture again.

Video monitors at each station indicate the type of subassembly for that bike. As each bike enters the system, it is identified by its VIN, Vehicle Identification Number, just like a car. This master ID carries the bike’s entire bill of materials from station to station so operators can tell at a glance which specific parts each bike needs.

Many fixtures were built-in house. Victory technicians built the electronics testing station that tests the integrity of each circuit and lamp wired to the bike’s electrical system.

“The last thing we want to do on a bike as complex as the Vision is to have to troubleshoot it to find out why a component didn’t work,” Holland says. “All the subassembly stations do a functional electrical test; then we do a final assembly electrical test to make sure that all the connectors are mated, the components are good and everything works together.”

Brakes were formerly filled offline. Victory engineers purchased brake evacuation and fill equipment that allows operators to build and bleed brakes right on the bike.

“However, when it first came in, its monitor panel was mounted where the operators filling the brakes couldn’t see what was going on,” Holland explains. “So we remounted the panel and integrated the DCI arm right onto the brake machine. Now everything is right in front of the operator.”

Automotive processes
Victory’s production is set up like an automotive plant. Inside the 258,000-square-foot facility, 500-plus employees work three shifts. The first shift is assembly; second shift works ahead on the following days’ welding and painting orders; and a small third shift unloads and stages materials at point of use stations for the next day’s production.

Cleaning crews and some of the maintenance staff also work on third shift. The plant’s maintenance staff comprises 20 professionals including tool and die makers, electricians and a maintenance tool crib technician. These are weighted most heavily on first shift, and then split more or less evenly between second and third shifts.

Setting the pace
Assembly stations are balanced; each has a similar work content and each task is timed so that the line essentially never stops moving. A station that adds saddle bags to a Vision might be paired off against a station that attaches fenders to other models — although the operations are different, they take the same amount of time. The result is a balanced production line that never falters or stutters.

An Andon system of overhead signs and audio tones provides a metronome for the production pace and immediately sounds an alarm if an operator determines the line must be stopped for any reason.

Standardization is designed into every station. As the structural spine of the motorcycle, each frame must be uniformly and perfectly welded every time. Victory’s robotic welders are fitted with failsafe mechanisms such as touch sensors to ensure every weld is right and no parts are missed.

The robotic welders are modular themselves, and are mounted on pallet systems that can be repositioned in about 30 minutes and welding in less than two hours.

Manual welding is standardized too. Numerous jigs, tools, and monitoring systems develop almost unconscious rhythms and sequences for different jobs.

Welder Shawn Adams demonstrates the manual frame welding process for us. When a robot finishes its welds, Adams moves the frame to a jig that checks alignment and degree of rake. Next, he places the frame in his welding fixture, which is integrated with an arc monitoring system.

“The computer reads off my welder,” he explains. “It reads voltage, amperage, the wire feed rate and how long each weld takes. It monitors my weld sequence; if I get out of my sequence, it knows because the weld time is off. If I miss a weld it will also know (and lock up), so it’s impossible to send a bike out with any missing or bad welds.”

“It’s much easier said than done to get every welder to weld in exactly the same sequence, but if you can, you are much less likely to make a mistake,” Biehn adds. “And that’s what we’ve found — the machine drives the sequence so that we never miss a weld.”

Welders are also now transitioning their own parts into the paint system, which keeps the line flowing.

Dirt: Enemy number one
The paint department’s critical quality demands warrant a dedicated maintenance pro who can immediately attend to any issue that might impact quality. When the finished product has a mirror finish, there’s no room for even a speck of error.

“Paint is a process of controlling inputs because by the time you notice a part is bad, you can have a lot of them,” Biehn explains.

Every paint system is updated and signed off as ok or not, by 9:00 a.m. each day. A system that is good gets a green sticker from the person who inspected it. A red sticker must carry an explanation of the problem. This simple visual system allows the supervisor to see the entire system’s status at a glance.

“Dirt is the number one enemy,” says Curtis Ettema, liquid paint supervisor. “If I’m painting a gas tank that takes eight days to paint and we get to the last stage and it’s no good — that’s a very big deal.”

Guarding against dirt is a way of life. The paint department has its own 5-S program and each operator has defined daily duties. The golden rule is, “Leave it cleaner than you found it.” Operators sign off on each required task and the entire department is audited weekly. The audits are then reviewed in weekly meetings and action plans are drafted to address issues and improve processes.

The paint process itself is computer controlled. Parts going into the painting robots are identified by rack number. From this information, computers determine the correct paint program and color for that part. Once painted, the parts are cured, cooled and delivered to the paint staff for inspection. Approved parts are boxed and sent straight to their point of use in assembly.

When an evil speck does defile a painted part, artisan technicians “finesse” it away. No bike ships out without a flawless, buffed and polished finish.

The open road holds many hazards for painted parts, so Victory provides repaint services for every model it has ever made. Rick Kraus has been the department’s go-to guy for custom paint repairs for six years. Even if a bike’s color scheme has not been produced for years, he can bring a damaged part back to like-new appearance.

Easy to ride, easy to build
One thing a visitor quickly notices —nobody stoops here. Virtually every manual task takes place between the waist and the shoulder. Each bike moves through the assembly line on pneumatic carriers that allow operators to raise or lower a bike to access any part with ease.

“Our old carrier design required a lot of cable maintenance,” Nathan explains. “We worked with Joel’s maintenance group and came up with a design that has no cables, two cylinders and an airlock system. We didn’t have the time to build them in-house, so we found a local company to build them for us. They save a lot of maintenance.”

“The new carriers are just one example of the lifting devices we have in place. We have paid a lot of attention here to ergonomics,” Biehn says. “Our goal is zero injuries, but we kept seeing CTDs (Cumulative Trauma Disorders) which are caused by worker position. With everything we design now, the ergonomics of how we build are as important as the product itself. That’s nonnegotiable.”

The money test
One of the final tests each bike undergoes before rolling off the line is rolling off the throttle on the dyno. In a secure noise-reducing booth, a worker brings each bike roaring to life and runs it through its gears up to 70 mph. Even through a plexiglass wall, the roar is rich and thrilling.

“Now you can see why we put the enclosure around it. It gets pretty loud!” Biehn says and laughs.

The last step for some bikes is the toughest. For the more than a decade, Erma Preston has conducted final quality assurance inspections on randomly chosen bikes as they roll off the line. Each inspection takes roughly 90 minutes as she checks off several hundred points on each bike. She can challenge anything she sees.

Out of corn, chrome
As another gleaming bike rolls off the line, it’s hard to suppress the desire to ride it. The fact that these v-twin wonders are coming out of Iowa corn country is amazing: You would never expect to see it here, but here it is.

For the dedicated pros and riders who build these rolling works of art, what Victory does here is a dream come true. So maybe Kinsella was right. Maybe this is heaven after all.

This article appeared in the February/March 2008 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright 2008.

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