Twenty assembly plant production workers were transferred Monday from the next-door car assembly plant to the Lordstown Complex's new body shop to train on the new car body-making machinery, with the total to reach 195 in coming months.
Testing of gaps in fenders, hoods and other steel body sections is ahead of the schedule that will take that quality measure up to 90 percent of ideal tolerance.
Workers check and double-check test models to validate a mind-numbing array of changes at the Lordstown Complex, automaking factories that have seen their share of critical vehicle launches in 44 years.
It all adds up to what's being called General Motors Corp.'s largest-ever installation of robots - more than 800 weld-sparking, fender-toting, quality-testing mechanical arms and eyes - in the Lordstown West Plant's new body shop.
The goal is to launch on Aug. 9 the first of thousands of flawless Chevrolet Cruze upscale small cars, continuing GM's efforts to polish its image as a maker of quality vehicles.
The Cruze is being called GM's most important vehicle launch this year because it's being designed for the mass market instead of the narrowly focused Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric small car.
GM showed it's taking the Cruze launch seriously by sending a two-man film crew to the complex Tuesday to film the validation process. The footage will be shown not only within GM but online at YouTube.com and other social media sites as GM tries to broaden its marketing reach.
''We want to let people know how serious we are about building the safest, highest-quality and most reliable vehicle possible, which the Cruze will be,'' Lordstown spokesman Tom Mock said.
The star of the show - besides the Cruze itself - is Lordstown's new body shop in the complex's West metal fabricating plant.
Built with GM's $350 million investment, the shop is a forest of robot welders, movers and quality checkers that looks like a scene from a Hollywood science-fiction movie.
The robots for now are geared to building the Cruze sedan, a car GM says will deliver as many as 40 miles a gallon while carrying five passengers in style and comfort normally expected from a larger vehicle.
Rick Dowd, a 33-year Lordstown veteran from Lisbon who is the United Auto Workers launch coordinator, said new processes like using adhesive instead of ''pinch welds'' to join some metal parts and 1,000 inches of sealant will make the car both more durable and quieter than previous small cars made at the plant.
''Gluing two panels together is more structurally sound ... because pinch welding can lead to corrosion. There's also a weight savings,'' he said.
The Cruze's cabin noise level will be about 26 decibels, putting it at the level of the luxury Cadillac CTS, Dowd added.
Lordstown's goal ''is to be the best in the segment versus Toyota and Honda,'' Dowd said, referring to the Japanese automakers that for years have set the quality standard in the small-car segment.
In a room devoted to quality control, the metal body of a test Cruze undergoes some of the 900-plus checks done for a routine quality audit.
The car, built Jan. 22 as one of about 46 validation models the plant has made so far, is scanned and measured with a new process to make sure gaps between the sheet metal meet the 2 millimeter width target.
The models are at 75 percent of the tolerance level, well on their way toward the goal of 85 percent to 90 percent, Dowd said.
The complex will continue to make validation models, which won't be sold, for a few more months before switching to 500 to 600 Cruzes that will be saleable, Mock said.
Quality controls continue to the assembly plant, where workers will add the engine, instrument panel, seats and other components to the underbodies - undercarriage to roof - that come out of the body shop.
Assembly workers in the initial stage of chassis assembly install motor mounts, brake lines, air conditioning lines and other parts during build week, said Chris Ensign, who quarterbacked the Warren G. Harding Raiders to the state high school football championship in 1990 and now serves as chassis launch manager. Workers undergo training on the new processes during off weeks, he noted.
Because the Cruze already has been launched for European and Asian markets, Lordstown workers can call on help from around the world. Dowd said three workers from the Australian Cruze plant visited Lordstown last week. Another worker from South Korea has come to the plant.
''It keeps you from making the same mistake twice,'' he said.
Signs suggest the work is paying off. The Cruze has been chosen by the World Car Awards as a top 10 finalist for World Car of the Year. Winners will be judged by international auto industry journalists and announced April 1 at the New York Auto Show.
The car also is the first passenger car to receive maximum crash safety scores in Europe, as well as top five-star crash safety ratings China and Australia.
Achieving best-in-segment could position Lordstown for even bigger production plans. Dowd noted the new robots, of which about 600 came from other GM factories, enable Lordstown to make as many as six different body types, including a mini-SUV and two-door coupe model.
For now, the focus is on building the four-door sedan model, said Dowd, who noted he has worked on four previous launches, starting with several versions of the Chevrolet Cavalier J-Car and the current Chevrolet Cobalt, which began in October 2004.
Given the pressure on GM after exiting Chapter 11 bankruptcy last summer, the latest launch shapes up as the biggest for him and Lordstown's roughly 4,000 total work force.
