Momentum 399TH

Carrera man wrote:

NC Hauler wrote:

Carrera man wrote:
Been looking at all brands for a year. I mean really looking, crawling in and out of areas that most never look at. The Momentum has one of the best finish's. Not perfect but one of the best. Now add their truly great customer service and we'll be going with a 397th when we go full time in the next couple of months. The second bath has a Fantastic Fan in it. As for people running around during assembly I'm fine with it. When I had my contracting that's pretty much how you make money lol. Trailers are not cars. There's no moving assembly line. For the most part their still hand made. As was explained to me by a factory rep a few weeks ago, when a trailer is brought to their inspection facility and something is wrong, the crew or person responsible is brought there to correct it. You screw it up, you fix it. Causes a lot less screw ups in the future!

Speed and "chaotic does NOT equal "Quality, I don't care the brand....They didn't "BID" on a job like a contractor does..As an Engineer who has been in manufacturing for 41 years, Safety is first for the worker/company, then Quality...That equals Lean Training and 5S training...you save money when you don't have to repeat a process, and don't produce scrap.

The one that was supposed to make it right the first time, may not be able to fix his/her mistake...it happens...

The GD is a beautiful product,,,I'm just saying, clutter and chaos is a negative in manufacturing..I've crawled around, in and out of pop-ups, TT's and 5er's for 35 years or more, looking at things most others don't either, and it's been rare that I didn't find something messed up it ..may be OK with an RV,, but ZERO DEFECTS, and QUALITY WITHOUT COMPROMISE" is the key when manufacturing product that could be the difference in life and death... all manufacturing plant's should build their product with that attitude, then it would be extremely rare to read about a "badly manufactured product....something the consumer is paying their hard earned money for.

Sorry to have gotten off topic, I'm speaking to more about manufacturing process and company's that don't have good manufacturing processes, and we the consumer end up paying twice or more for the end product.

GD is a very good product, I teetered for months and months on whether to buy one, but ended up going more with location and price, so no knock on GD..but if I were a Supervisor there, I would want to promote a flow process so that when a prospective customer takes a tour thru the plant, they would be more impressed when leaving, and not leave doubting the manufacturing process ...guess I've lived it too long...I'm retiring in July at age 66:B

Didn't see that the OP said chaotic. Just was turned off by speed and a messy shop floor. I didn't grow up yesterday and I've been to many fabrications shops and when their going gun hoe sometimes a messy floor will happen. Most of the time they have someone to clean it up latter. It could have been that the person or crew for clean up didn't get to that station yet. I find in difficult to believe that they would allow factory tours in a "chaotic" factory so I'll take this entire posting with a grain of salt.

X2 peoples perception of what is happening will vary

NC Hauler wrote:

Carrera man wrote:
Been looking at all brands for a year. I mean really looking, crawling in and out of areas that most never look at. The Momentum has one of the best finish's. Not perfect but one of the best. Now add their truly great customer service and we'll be going with a 397th when we go full time in the next couple of months. The second bath has a Fantastic Fan in it. As for people running around during assembly I'm fine with it. When I had my contracting that's pretty much how you make money lol. Trailers are not cars. There's no moving assembly line. For the most part their still hand made. As was explained to me by a factory rep a few weeks ago, when a trailer is brought to their inspection facility and something is wrong, the crew or person responsible is brought there to correct it. You screw it up, you fix it. Causes a lot less screw ups in the future!

Speed and "chaotic does NOT equal "Quality, I don't care the brand....They didn't "BID" on a job like a contractor does..As an Engineer who has been in manufacturing for 41 years, Safety is first for the worker/company, then Quality...That equals Lean Training and 5S training...you save money when you don't have to repeat a process, and don't produce scrap.

The one that was supposed to make it right the first time, may not be able to fix his/her mistake...it happens...

The GD is a beautiful product,,,I'm just saying, clutter and chaos is a negative in manufacturing..I've crawled around, in and out of pop-ups, TT's and 5er's for 35 years or more, looking at things most others don't either, and it's been rare that I didn't find something messed up it ..may be OK with an RV,, but ZERO DEFECTS, and QUALITY WITHOUT COMPROMISE" is the key when manufacturing product that could be the difference in life and death... all manufacturing plant's should build their product with that attitude, then it would be extremely rare to read about a "badly manufactured product....something the consumer is paying their hard earned money for.

Sorry to have gotten off topic, I'm speaking to more about manufacturing process and company's that don't have good manufacturing processes, and we the consumer end up paying twice or more for the end product.

GD is a very good product, I teetered for months and months on whether to buy one, but ended up going more with location and price, so no knock on GD..but if I were a Supervisor there, I would want to promote a flow process so that when a prospective customer takes a tour thru the plant, they would be more impressed when leaving, and not leave doubting the manufacturing process ...guess I've lived it too long...I'm retiring in July at age 66:B

Didn't see that the OP said chaotic. Just was turned off by speed and a messy shop floor. I didn't grow up yesterday and I've been to many fabrications shops and when their going gun hoe sometimes a messy floor will happen. Most of the time they have someone to clean it up latter. It could have been that the person or crew for clean up didn't get to that station yet. I find in difficult to believe that they would allow factory tours in a "chaotic" factory so I'll take this entire posting with a grain of salt.

Carrera man wrote:
Been looking at all brands for a year. I mean really looking, crawling in and out of areas that most never look at. The Momentum has one of the best finish's. Not perfect but one of the best. Now add their truly great customer service and we'll be going with a 397th when we go full time in the next couple of months. The second bath has a Fantastic Fan in it. As for people running around during assembly I'm fine with it. When I had my contracting that's pretty much how you make money lol. Trailers are not cars. There's no moving assembly line. For the most part their still hand made. As was explained to me by a factory rep a few weeks ago, when a trailer is brought to their inspection facility and something is wrong, the crew or person responsible is brought there to correct it. You screw it up, you fix it. Causes a lot less screw ups in the future!

I hadn't looked at the 397 but I suspect the only reason it has a fan is because of the shower...I feel they should have fans in the 1/2 baths as well, that's what I was referring to but if they can do it for one then they should be able to do it on all of them, shower or not. Even a small sidewall fan would work.

Carrera man wrote:
Been looking at all brands for a year. I mean really looking, crawling in and out of areas that most never look at. The Momentum has one of the best finish's. Not perfect but one of the best. Now add their truly great customer service and we'll be going with a 397th when we go full time in the next couple of months. The second bath has a Fantastic Fan in it. As for people running around during assembly I'm fine with it. When I had my contracting that's pretty much how you make money lol. Trailers are not cars. There's no moving assembly line. For the most part their still hand made. As was explained to me by a factory rep a few weeks ago, when a trailer is brought to their inspection facility and something is wrong, the crew or person responsible is brought there to correct it. You screw it up, you fix it. Causes a lot less screw ups in the future!

Speed and "chaotic does NOT equal "Quality, I don't care the brand....They didn't "BID" on a job like a contractor does..As an Engineer who has been in manufacturing for 41 years, Safety is first for the worker/company, then Quality...That equals Lean Training and 5S training...you save money when you don't have to repeat a process, and don't produce scrap.

The one that was supposed to make it right the first time, may not be able to fix his/her mistake...it happens...

The GD is a beautiful product,,,I'm just saying, clutter and chaos is a negative in manufacturing..I've crawled around, in and out of pop-ups, TT's and 5er's for 35 years or more, looking at things most others don't either, and it's been rare that I didn't find something messed up it ..may be OK with an RV,, but ZERO DEFECTS, and QUALITY WITHOUT COMPROMISE" is the key when manufacturing product that could be the difference in life and death... all manufacturing plant's should build their product with that attitude, then it would be extremely rare to read about a "badly manufactured product....something the consumer is paying their hard earned money for.

Sorry to have gotten off topic, I'm speaking to more about manufacturing process and company's that don't have good manufacturing processes, and we the consumer end up paying twice or more for the end product.

GD is a very good product, I teetered for months and months on whether to buy one, but ended up going more with location and price, so no knock on GD..but if I were a Supervisor there, I would want to promote a flow process so that when a prospective customer takes a tour thru the plant, they would be more impressed when leaving, and not leave doubting the manufacturing process ...guess I've lived it too long...I'm retiring in July at age 66:B

Been looking at all brands for a year. I mean really looking, crawling in and out of areas that most never look at. The Momentum has one of the best finish's. Not perfect but one of the best. Now add their truly great customer service and we'll be going with a 397th when we go full time in the next couple of months. The second bath has a Fantastic Fan in it. As for people running around during assembly I'm fine with it. When I had my contracting that's pretty much how you make money lol. Trailers are not cars. There's no moving assembly line. For the most part their still hand made. As was explained to me by a factory rep a few weeks ago, when a trailer is brought to their inspection facility and something is wrong, the crew or person responsible is brought there to correct it. You screw it up, you fix it. Causes a lot less screw ups in the future!

NC Hauler wrote:

MrHavasu wrote:
We just bought a GD Momentum 348 and it is our 5th rv. Had it for 4 months now and am still impressed. Its not perfect, but I am still very happy.

None of them are perfect....a lot of them could be much better..As I stated earlier we came close to purchasing a GD Momentum.. beautiful rig"s...I didn't see anything wrong..price and distance to the GD dealer sold finally sold me on the Jayco

Agree 100%. I've looked at nearly every brand of toy hauler and have come down to several choices. I love the GD 350M because of the size. I'm trying to stay under 40 because of where we go and how often we use it ( a lot ) for baseball tournaments.

I like the Fuzion paint scheme. I am however wondering how that Fuzion front end cap will look after several years. Our coach is kept under cover but gets afternoon sun on the front for several hours.

I think we'd own the GD by now if I wasn't reluctant to try and keep another mostly white coach clean, including the parts of the front end cap not covered by decals.

Decisions....:?

ramgunner wrote:
Many years ago I wrote a series of articles on manufactured homes. I went through various facilities where they were made - the process is quite similar in many respects to RV construction.

I too saw things strewn on the floor, people running, jumping, crawling, whatever it took to get the job done as fast as possible, in both high-end and mid-range facilities. It didn't matter what the perceived quality of the home was, they all did it the same way with mostly the same materials.

I observed first hand folks going in and doing their job on the assembly line and damaging work that had been done 5 minutes before. They were in a hurry and "things happen". They were paid by the piece and wanted to get as many done as possible.

The product that left the assembly line was generally in rough shape, and that's being diplomatic. Some looked like disasters. It wasn't until the pieces were delivered to the site and assembled, and the "finish team" went through it that it looked like what it was supposed to (a process that could take several days). The finish team often had to replace things like cabinet doors, re-do drywall, tape, and texture, and things like that. I accompanied a couple of them, and their trucks had cabinet doors of all types the manufacturer used, replacement windows, replacement doors, drywall mud, every color of paint the manufacturer used, etc. They could almost re-build a home if they had to, and could get anything they needed from the factory within a day.

From what has been explained to me, the inspection facility that GD is building will be like the "finish team" that manufactured home companies used. They will go through everything and make sure it's right, replace any parts that are damaged, etc.

Given how the industry does things on the assembly line, it's about the only realistic way to improve what gets shipped out to the customer.

Interesting experience. I just find it hard to believe that by rushing the assembly line as much as you say they do, that it's actually cheaper, in the long run, to hire an additional finish team and all that?

Think about it, if your QC was on point during assembly, you wouldn't need an entirely different team to finish everything. Nor would you need a truck full of cabinet doors and such (more inventory and overhead) to keep on hand.

MrHavasu wrote:
We just bought a GD Momentum 348 and it is our 5th rv. Had it for 4 months now and am still impressed. Its not perfect, but I am still very happy.

None of them are perfect....a lot of them could be much better..As I stated earlier we came close to purchasing a GD Momentum.. beautiful rig"s...I didn't see anything wrong..price and distance to the GD dealer sold finally sold me on the Jayco

We just bought a GD Momentum 348 and it is our 5th rv. Had it for 4 months now and am still impressed. Its not perfect, but I am still very happy.

I've seen several of the 350M with MaxFan in the second bathroom.