Swift Production Line!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dustydog]

As a follow on from "Bailey Production Line!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! did anyone see The Caravan Channel tonight?

They visited the Swift factory.
Extremely noisy with high pitched screeching air powered hand tools. Only one operative I could see was wearing ear defenders.
No sign of any real uniforms. Plenty of football shirts and England ones in particular

Most were wearing shorts and various types of trainers. Didn't look like toe protector sort.
They seemed reasonably on the ball until the shell shock hit.

They all get paid on piece work! The more you make the more you earn. IMO that is not condusive to good QA etc but I am sure others know better than me.
Maybe there's just something endemic in the caravan industry that doesn't fit well with today's perceived working practices?

 

[mullsy1]

Didnt see it but piece work can be counter-productive.The Quality Control guys earn their money in these situations.

Mike

 

[forestgump]

was that a old one 2008 didnt think it was on today was you watching the gold program.

 

[ProfJohnL]

When I worked for a major appliance supplier to the caravan industry, I had to visit several caravan manufacturers production lines to help sort out "problems" they were having with the products the company I worked for made.

In the vast majority of cases, the "problems" were due to production operatives at the caravan manufacturers damaging appliances, loosing parts or failing to fit them correctly.

Even then (1980's) they were using production cells, and for example one cell might assemble the floor to the chassis, the next cell fit the internal furniture, next cell the walls etc.

It was abundantly clear that the operatives emphasis was to get as many units through the cell as possible almost regardless of the quality of the work they did, and how it might affect the next cell or the finished product. Quantity not quality was king.

I saw first hand the following errors
Screws missed out
Screws put through the wrong place and missing wooden battens
Misplaced staples
Water pipes cut slightly too short and the pulled tight to make a joint,
Couplings left loose or cross threaded,
Stanley knife cuts in carpets fixed with a piece of duct tape on the back,
Door latches fixed twice because the first time it was twisted and didn't mate with the other part leaving screw holes visible,
Loose electrical connections on lamps in the ceiling void.
Electronic connections forced the wrong way into sockets.

In virtually all the above situations, if the operative had to suffer the consequences of their own handy work, they would soon start to take a bit more care, and do it right first time.

I conclude that using piece work in this way is not conducive to building quality products.

 

[Dustydog]

was that a old one 2008 didnt think it was on today was you watching the gold program.

Forest,
I've checked . It was the 2008 programme. Not that old . If things have changed at the Swift factory in the last two years then I hope it is for the better. Prof John's explanation of piece work says it all. Hardly customer orientated.

 

[xtrailman]

Profs got it spot on.
But the car industry uses a production line, and manages to make largely reliable cars.
At lest at Nissan plants, etc. My cars booked in for its second service, with NO extra work to be done.
Thats not happened with ANY new caravan i have ever had, although only had three from new.
lack of QC inspections as i see it?
Prof mentioned missing screws, when i viewed the new swifts last year, one had two external screws missing !
Even the dealer couldn't be bothered to put some in, i just don't understand it, why display a faulty product?
Even harder to understand is people viewing the caravan, then ordering one?

 

[SteveW77]

As someone who once worked for Electrolux, the manufacturers of Domectic caravan products, I can assure you that their products were made in exactly the same way you describe. That is the way of mass production, always was always will be.I don't believe one company is really any worse than the next.

Steve W

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Ray,

I quite agree,

The car industry and its suppliers often use cell manufacturing, but the key to its success is the way the cells are integrated with each other, and interfaced with the production engineers and designers. There is common thrust by every one to aim for zero defects coordinated by an effective QA policy and procedures.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Steve,

Perhaps we were an exception, but without any doubt the appliance manufacture I worked for, used Cell manufacturing, but the strength of the business was the way that managers, designers, Production engineers and the cell teams all worked together looking at production issues and worked out effective solutions to reduce non conformance to remarkably low levels and boost first time right to over 99.9%.

 

[SteveW77]

It certainly was not like that at Electrolux, in fact most of the time I thought that the upper management was actually employed by the competition, as they spent a lot of time finding ways of disrupting production. ( splitting up long standing modules that had been working perfectly satisfactorily), continuing production although bought in components were below the required standard. There is nothing more guaranteed to lower morale, than having to produce rubbish, just because the powers that be do not like seeing people doing nothing while they are being paid. Perhaps this is why Electrolux UK is no longer a major manufacturer.

 

[Philspadders]

Cars, Caravans, White box goods . The cost of these items tp us is largely determined by the productivity of the manufacturing unit. The automotive sector and white box industries are based on a sell what we make although the in process QA, and Lean systems are rigourusly monitored and controlled.

Automotive and White Goods have a zero stock policy whereas the caravan sector with its relatively low volumes is not in a position to do this.
Automotive and White box also depend heavily on sub assemblies arriving on a JIT basis . The caravan sector does not.
The difference between the sectors is that Carvan manufacturers start with a Chassis that make everything Fit to the chassis.
Automotive and Whit box do not, they assemble.,
Howver , if the caravan sector could adopt a Kanban, JIT system, and adopt a kaizen ethos based on the TPS template as used by others , productivity may fall , but the potential increase in production cost would be offset by the lower non conformances that would result from an improved quality ethos.

 

[Parksy]

There are a lot of assumptions based on conjecture and speculation in this topic as there was in the similar Bailey topic, I haven't visited Bailey but I went round Swifts during a normal days production and these are my observations.
Some forum members, both from CT2 and later from this forum, went on a series of factory visits to Swifts at Cottingham about three years ago.
The weekend visits for some took place when no production was taking place but the weekday visits, one of which I went on, were during normal production days.

There were no special measures taken because forum members were visiting, there was a lot of forum discussion with yet more conjecture about this at the time. Nobody had had to re paint the white lines or tidy work areas up, the visits were so that Swifts management, production and design staff could obtain genuine feedback from their real customers in real time - the unvarnished truth. There was no whitewash or extra care being taken as was suggested by some who hadn't attended. It was meant to be warts and all.

Swifts plant is modern with new presses to manufacture the one piece sides of the caravans which showed that investment had recently been made at the time of our visit.
As a matter of fact Swift do operate a just in time system for parts, at the time of the vsit Swift were about to invest heavily in the local road network to minimise disruption from their transport operations both from receiving parts and despatching new caravans and to speed up journey times by bypassing local villages. Some parts are made by Swift, such as the injection moulded supports, lockers etc.
They don't store a great deal of stock at the Cottingham plant, we were told about the jit system during our visit where we saw the unloading area close to the assembly lines.
We watched caravans being assembled, from Alko chassis being assembled on jigs, caravan sides being pressed and bonded, right through the production stages to the end products, there were lines assembling various models as well as motorhomes which then went to a final checking and cleaning area before being despatched. Every operation during assembly has to be signed off as do the appliance and safety checks so, piecework or not, the job has to be done properly. The workforce don't loaf around, piece work rewards hard work and the assembly workers were hard workers from what we saw.
Our visit took up most of the morning and we were then given a buffet lunch, shown some footage about the various models being produced before a frank question and answer session hosted by Mr Peter Smith, chairman of Swift.
Mistakes made by the caravan industry in general and Swift in particular were discussed quite openly, there was no attempt to hide from unpalatable truths from what I saw.
The discussion then moved to what improvements caravan buyers would like to see in new caravans. Suggestions for practical improvements such as shock absorbers, fully lined shower compartments and better tyres had already been submitted via CT forum and Peter Smith promised to try to include the more practical improvements into future models. He seems to have done this, most of the improvements suggested have since been included on new model Swifts.
Naturally water ingress was discussed at length, Swift have adopted better and more efficient methods of assembling and sealing caravans although unfortunately forum members still occasionally report instances of water ingress on new caravans including Swifts. Bailey caravans have stolen a march on their competition with their Alu Tec system, time will tell how well it performs but it's definitely a big improvement which should force standards to be raised all round. As often as not many of these instances of water ingress are due to component failure, windows etc rather than poor or slipshod assembly techniques. The caravans that we watched being assembled were designed to fit together sequentially and only one way and although by no means perfect every single time as forum posts show, if we consider the 15000 units produced by Swift alone during one year the instances of failure due to poor assembly or design appear to be lessening as far as Swift at least are concerned.
Having spent time in discussion with Swift production managers, design staff and the chairman I came away convinced by Swifts commitment to quality, I own a Swift built caravan and I for one would have no hesitation in replacing it with another when the time comes.
We on forums invariably read of failures, disappointment and dissatisfaction and rightly so, we can do our part to force standards to rise but by way of a change my post is from a satisfied customer.

 

[Dustydog]

Whilst I maybe a Bailey dog at present there is no denying Swift are prepared to stand up and be counted. I like that.

Please see how Swift have dealt with this subject on their own forum.

http://www.swift-talk.co.uk/forum/topics/swift-manufacturing-methods

 

[SteveW77]

I am so dissatisfied with the Swift caravan that I have had for the last ten years, that I have ordered another Swift group Eccles Moonstone, hopefully to be collected this month.

Steve W

 

[ProfJohnL]

I seem to have lost a posting - the gremlins must have eaten it

However since then, Steve your last posting is rather cryptic. Can you elucidate further?

And returning to current production processes, I can tell you that Swift and some other manufactures were moving towards a JIT system in the late 1980's.But that system is only as good as the information given to their suppliers.

The main production hub for our company’s products was in the midlands, and it was a two to four hour drive for our lorries to get to the various caravan manufactures sites.

With lean manufacturing, we tended not to produce for stock but against a scheduled demand that had been set up with each of our major customers. Our production planning and facilities were driven by the caravan manufactures projected production needs, so appliances for the manufactures particular days production were actually manufactured the day before and loaded onto the lorries in the late afternoon, ready for an early start in the morning.

Given that we received a generic rolling production plan that covered a couple of months, which was always chased and confirmed by our offices, it hardened closer to the due date, by the day before we needed and got confirmation from the manufactures so we could start our production cycle for the next days early delivery.

Some manufactures were significantly better than others with their forward planning, but with a couple of manufactures, the number of times our deliveries were turned away because the manufacture had changed their production and not told us suppliers beggared belief. This meant we had to change our production against all the planning to get new supplies of the units the manufacture wanted as soon as possible. This usually meant an evening shift, and agency lorries and drivers to over night the delivery.

To be fair it was mainly two manufacturers that managed to cause most of the disruption, and it is no coincidence that both have gone to the wall.

 

[xtrailman]

I've had two swifts, both with damp.
first one at 8 years old.
second at 5 years old.
While a avondale was dry at 7 years old.
And my present Bailey is dry at 6 years old.
Damp prevention is the top of my list, after all the other junk fitted is common to all, fridge etc.

For that reason my next caravan will be a new build Bailey, its a no brainer for me.

 

[SteveW77]

In my opinion, Swift Group products are no worse than any other major caravan producer and the after sales has greatly improved lately. As I have already stated, I have owned a Swift caravan for the last 10yrs. In that time it has suffered from minor problems, but nothing drastic.
Bearing in mind that I tow it in the region of 6-7000 miles a year and that it sits in a field 365 days a year in all types of weather
from -15c----+45c, in rain, snow and blistering sunshine, I think that it has stood the test of time very well. Every caravan that I have looked at, has had its bad points. The better half finds the layout that we picked and stayed with over all the years, is still the best for us and despite a few gimmicky things that I am not to keen on, we have ordered a new Eccles Moonstone. I hope that this model last as long as the one it is replacing. If not, I may well have to modify my opinion of Swift Group products. I am always prepared to change my mind, If the evidence is strong enough

 

[Parksy]

I've had two swifts, both with damp.
first one at 8 years old.
second at 5 years old.
While a avondale was dry at 7 years old.
And my present Bailey is dry at 6 years old.
Damp prevention is the top of my list, after all the other junk fitted is common to all, fridge etc.

For that reason my next caravan will be a new build Bailey, its a no brainer for me.

Each to their own as the old saying goes.
No matter what make of caravan is mentioned on forums including European manufactured models someone somewhere will have experienced problems with 'damp' or to be more accurate, water ingress.
We seldom see forum comments from the overwhelming majority of customers who are entirely satisfied with the caravans that they bought, no matter who the manufacturer was and it's always good for first time caravan buyers to read something reassuring rather than a catalogue of horror stories about various manufacturers.

Bailey's AluTec system is a quantum leap in the right direction as far as preventing water ingress problems are concerned and other manufacturers who hope to compete for caravan sales in the future simply must raise standards of design, construction and build quality to keep pace.
Swft and Bailey are leading producers of UK built caravans in terms of units sold, now that Bailey offer a 10 year guarantee against water ingress customers will demand similar guarantees from other caravan manufacturers, especially Swift.

The UK caravan manufacturing industry is now at a crossroads in my opinion.
Trading conditions could hardly be better for them.

Exchange rates with the Euro has virtually priced European competition out of the UK caravan market.
High ticket prices, a poor exchange rate coupled with disgraceful treatment of airline passengers and uncertain employment prospects have burst the package holiday bubble and UK holidays are now a serious option for hard pressed families.
Many young families are considering buying caravans for the first time, often they buy used caravans initially but sales of new caravans are bouyant.
Products are much better now than at any time in the past in terms of style and comfort at least and hopefully caravan manufacturers will consolidate the new popularity of caravanning by producing reliable fit for purpose caravans supplied by good dealer networks.
The latter is where things can go wrong in my opinion, poor standards of customer service will negate any effort by manufacturers to provide excellence and although the footage by the Caravan Channel provides a brief insight into manufacturing processes it is the dealer who provides the interface with the customer.
Get a good dealer network and the customer should get a good caravan, no matter what sort of T shirts the caravan assemblers wear!

 

[SteveW77]

I think Parksy that you have hit the nail on the head, I have never found a dealer that I have had 100% confidence in.
This time I bought my van at the Birmingham show, through Glossop Caravans. This dealership is 160 miles away from where I live. So if I do have problems, they had better be sorted on the first attempt or I will not be happy. I know nothing about this dealership, but I have not read any bad stories, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.
I am expecting difficulties trying to get an Eccles dealer nearer to home to cover any warranty repairs, but if I do, I will try a direct approach to Swifts to help matters along.

 

[Parksy]

Our dealer is 100 miles away in Weston Super Mare but it has never been much of a problem to us.
The only major problem that we've ever had with the caravan came to light when we spent a week holidaying in it straight after collecting it from the dealers when we bought it.
We decided to stay close just in case and we had trouble obtaining a tv signal on the Status 530 aerial. We phoned the dealers and as we were passing after our holiday we nipped round and they replaced the aerial under warranty.
Whenever we've had the caravan serviced we've timed it to coincide with a trip to the South West and small issues that we may have had were checked out then.
Swift posted a replacemment Hartal door lock and some waste pipe plastic covers which I changed myself rather than waiting until I was in Weston and now that the three year parts warranty is expired I used a NCC approved mobile service engineer to complete a full annual service this time. The guy did a great job and was cheaper than the dealers plus we didn't have to visit Somerset for the service.
Good Luck with the new Eccles, with a bit of planning you could tie in the earlier services with trips to the Peak District

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Parksey

Some very good points and very well put. It amplifies the concept of customer focus that I have mentioned previously.

Where the caravan manufacturers do have some difficulty is with the fact that the caravan dealers are independent of the manufacture and thus the detailed aims and methods of both the manufacturer and the dealer are subtly but importantly different.
This means that regardless of what the manufacture may wish their end users experience to be, that they can’t force or control the dealers underlying methods.

This disconnection between the end user and the manufacture is a major factor in the frustration that end users experience and so often makes any problem more stressful and fraught when trying to resolve difficulties. It is a two way street though, because sometimes the manufactures when they do get involved seem more intent on protecting their image than resolving the end users difficulty.

Interestingly, since Swift have actively participated in the public forums both customers and the manufacturers experience of this company have improved and they are now perceived as being better.

However, whilst there have been some improvements over the years in the design and manufacture of caravans, it cannot be denied that there are still too many faults getting through to the end user, and some of them are still fairly fundamental and should have by now had a full and effective resolution – water ingress being one of them.

I do agree the industry is now in a position where it should be looking very carefully at its future and the way it interacts with all interested parties with a clear aim of improving, value for money, design function and reliability.

 

[NickinFrance]

We seldom see forum comments from the overwhelming majority of customers who are entirely satisfied with the caravans that they bought, no matter who the manufacturer was

Just because they don't post complaints, you can't assume they are satisfied, I'm broadly satisfied with our Sterling but certainly wouldn't say I was entirely satisfied because of a number of minor manufacturing issues that both individually & collectively are just too minor to mention to the dealer.
One that niggles me every time I go to the toilet is an edging strip on a shelf, it's about 20mm too short, something the fitter would have seen but would have destroyed his piecework rate to go back to the stores to get a replacement, equally a QA inspector should have noticed it but to remove the trim would have probably damaged the shelf & to remove the shelf would probably damaged the wall etc. so it was let go.
I was surprised that Caravans are built on a piecework basis but that would explain the niggles I have with mine.
In my experience, piecework is fine for mass produced jigged items but I would have though it wasn't suitable for something as complex & individual as a caravan.

 

[Parksy]

Hi John, thanks for your kind words regarding my purple prose

In one sense it would appear that the SOGA which is meant to offer customers protection actually protects caravan manufacturers to some extent.
The idea that the caravan dealer is the manufacturers customer rather than the individual who finally purchases the caravan allows some manufacturers to 'hide' if problems arise.
Evidence suggests that Swift caravans and perhaps to a slightly lesser degree Bailey caravans are more pro-active in helping end customers who experience difficulties but SOGA means that they could theoretically retreat behind the dealer if matters became fraught.
Most caravan dealers appear to try to offer a fair service but are let down by poor parts availability and the majority of problems with new caravans are centered around the component parts rather than assembly procedures nowadays.
Current design and assembly of caravans seems light years ahead of what was regarded as standard 15-20 years ago and water ingress problems caused solely by poor assembly alone are thankfully rare on new models these days.

This is why I believe that the caravan manufacturing industry stands at a crossroads at this point in time. The service offered by caravan dealers ought to be raised to an acceptable national standard and this could be done by manufacturers incentivising dealer networks to conform and by getting rid of outlets which can't or won't raise the bar.
There could perhaps be regional caravan servicing centers equipped to carry out anything from replacing a light bulb to a complete rebuild to factory standards or above. These places close to selected major cities would be centres of excellence as far as workmanship was concerned and they could be franchised jointly by leading caravan manufacturers but such service centers are but a pipe dream at present.
A reputable used caravan dealer and caravan workshop in my locality is appproved by Swift group to carry out servicing and repairs to Swift built caravans but they won't undertake any warranty work because they state that the rates paid lose them money is one instance.
A caravan owner ought to be able to take their caravan to any dealer regardless of locality in the same way that automobile owners do and they should be able to receive the same level of customer service regardless of where the caravan was purchased from. Manufacturers seem very keen to tie caravan buyers into paying main dealers high prices for annual services so it's high time that the same manufacturers guaranteed standards of work carried out and availability of workshop space.

 

[Parksy]

Just because they don't post complaints, you can't assume they are satisfied, I'm broadly satisfied with our Sterling but certainly wouldn't say I was entirely satisfied because of a number of minor manufacturing issues that both individually & collectively are just too minor to mention to the dealer.
One that niggles me every time I go to the toilet is an edging strip on a shelf, it's about 20mm too short, something the fitter would have seen but would have destroyed his piecework rate to go back to the stores to get a replacement, equally a QA inspector should have noticed it but to remove the trim would have probably damaged the shelf & to remove the shelf would probably damaged the wall etc. so it was let go.

I've only just seen Nick's post otherwise I'd have answered it in my previous post.
When we bought our Abbey 620 three years ago from new we stayed near to the dealers in order to identify any 'issues' that came to light.
I inspected the caravan very closely inside and out when it was handed over, in fact I used a check-list to ensure that I missed nothing. I'd have spotted the edging strip before I accepted the caravan, I was specifically looking for cosmetic defects after reading various forum posts. I wouldn't let something such as that lie, it would have had to be rectified as would any minor defect but perhaps that's just me

I'm not there to be the dealers bessie mate, I expect what I paid for which was a brand new fault free caravan. More of us should insist on zero defects before accepting caravans at handovers then manufacturing standards would have to be maintained and supplying dealers would be forced to carry out conscientious pre delivery inspections and remedial work before handovers took place.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Parksy

It would be interesting to be fly on the wall at Swifts board meetings, to see how they have actually found the experience of interacting with end users via the web site.

I believe that at first they would have found the information coming back to them as quite surprising, and not what they may have expected, but assuming they have genuinely reviewed the data and information, they have received, I wonder what changes to their design and manufacturing strategies they have considered or even implemented.

Bailey also started to get involved with forums, but they seem to have withdrawn from such a public arena,

But yes you are absolutely right about the wedge that SOGA inserts between the conventional and legal relationship between end user and manufacture. In practice it is the correct procedure, because for many products there are several intermediate stages between manufacture and end user, e.g. independent warehouse companies, distribution companies , wholesalers, retail warehouses and retailer. Not forgetting the legal responsibilities that credit card and other HP companies have.

With potentially so many stages of handling and change of ownership before the goods are retailed, there are so many opportunities for goods to be damaged between manufacture and end user, and the fault may not be the manufactures at all.

Sadly the supply chain is set up to distribute goods from manufacture towards the end user, rather like the blood flow in a vein it’s a one way route. When a problem arises, there is no regularly used route back down the chain, so things always take much longer and seem to be difficult.

To legislate for a simpler system is actually quite difficult, but as most manufacturers do offer a limited guarantee (in addition to the customers legal rights) the supply network for some products is short circuited.

But it still disconnects the manufacture from the end user, which is sometimes used to avoid liability trick.