Quote:
Originally Posted by 73737373
Greg,
Yes, a great help. Many thanks indeed. I believe there are variances/inconsistencies on SPID "protocols" depending on the operator, factory...could've been a new guy operating the SPID maker, or the regular guy called in sick that day.....and who knows what else. A blinding flash of the obvious, I have a 72 Sierra Grande...I'll look at that when I get home today....and a 72 Cheyenne Super. The "000" in the wheelbase block on my 70 GMC puzzles me....never seen that before, after 32 years of playing w/these trucks.
|
Just to be clear: there wasn't a "guy operating the SPID maker". The information was loaded into the plant database at the beginning of the model year (or as there were updates) and then "broadcast" to the print station, along with the build manifest information, window sticker detail, etc. All the installer had to do was peel the label off the printer, maybe put the clear cover over it, and stick it in the glovebox.
For assembly plants running 60 or 70 jobs per hour that's one completed truck every minute. That means the operator has about 45 seconds to peel the SPID, stick it in place and do the rest of his productive operations*. There is no way any human being could manually type a label in that length of time, with any degree of accuracy, and for 400 or 500 times a day.
Having said that: there were plant to plant differences, as the various locations took liberty with the noun names or RPO construction. A funny offshoot off that is - if there were errors then the SPIDs (and possibly window stickers) they were consistently wrong for that plant until corrected. We have an appropriate saying here at work: "At Chevy you don't make a mistake; you make a million of 'em".
K
*at Flint Assembly the guy that installed the SPID label also built up the floor mounted shifters (take the handle, slip the boot over the shaft, add the knob and tighten in the correct orientation) and installed the shifter in the vehicle (install the M20 or MY6 handle into the trans and screw the boot/retaining ring down). The SPID label was a small fraction of his overall job.