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Factory Tour Wednesday, Suggestions?


Bman1

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Have fun!  It’s a great tour.  Casey is super nice and knowledgeable.  Ask lots of questions, say hi to the builders, if they are not busy they will stop and talk to you about their process.  One of the gelcoat guys was between boats and stopped to say hi to my family and explain what he was doing, then talked to me about the difficulties matching up metalflake on different lines.

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I've got another post on this somewhere here...

After the time on the main floor, take some time to go up the road to where customer support is; Meet with the tech support guys and customer service reps. If you have any issues with your boat those are the people who are going to be answering the phones to help you out.

If time/travel allows, call:
PTM/Edge (AKA Protomet) in Oak Ridge to arrange a tour so you can see how the G4 is manufactured.
Apex/Commercial Sewing is in the same business park as Malibu. Go see how the biminis and covers are made.
OJ Props is in the same business park. They told me they don't do tours, but if you show up they might show you around.
Great Lakes Boat Top is in Vonore, TN. They also make biminis and covers for Malibu.
Malibu wasn't making trailers when I toured the factory in 04/2015, but they are now. I'd spend some time checking out the trailer manufacturing process. Asking questions about how they get the bunks to align to the hull, how they manage ride handling and towing characteristics based on the boat that is on the trailer are things I would ask about.

There were too many unannounced 2016 items being water tested when I was at the factory so I wasn't allowed to go down to the dock to see the water test. Ask about going down to the dock to see what they do (open bilge to test pumps, engine RPMs, ballast testing, etc.)

They may offer to let you help "split" a boat out of a mold, if they do make sure you grab a hammer and do that! Check out when/how they put the wiring harness in the boat and then how they join the top and bottom of the boat. Ask people about their favorite and ugliest color schemes they've seen.

Look for R&D on "new" engines. My guess is that any engine you see/hear running (while in the factory) isn't being installed, so there might be some interesting information. I would also ask about the v-drive and transmission combinations as well as prop sizes (diameter) for new boats.

Ask for a factory tour t-shirt; see if they have any cool stickers to share.

...that's all I can think of for now.

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Tour was fantastic Dan was our tour guide. I would allow more time the next time I do it. 

Didn't realize Malibu is going to be doing their own engines next year and they will be chevy's

A lot of good information about boats in general. 

We spent a lot of time in the 1st half of the production process, if I had it to do over I would spend more time in the 2nd half of the process. Overall Great though. 

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