Behind the Scenes Factory Tour! Ventrac!

hey we got a special treat for you today we're here in the ventrac factory and we are gonna take a tour of the factory Aaron's gonna show us the assembly line for the 4000 series tractor I'm going to walk through all of that one by one so I think we'll get to see even more attachments than you saw in our earlier video where we were actually working out that children's home if you haven't seen that video go take a look but I think you're gonna enjoy this tour stay with us in through that door comes raw steel and it goes from that area to staging and either onto a laser there or here this is our newest laser we get everything in flat sheet whatever bar stock everything that's tan red and sometimes black just stuff that we made on the tractor we make almost everything here all the attachments everything actually we buy in engines and tires various components but for the most part it comes in raw material we work it here and then it leaves final product so you'll get to see all this stuff that you see on these racks is already roof through fab bent and ready to be either welded or set free from Alberto yeah these are finished pieces not finished particle pieces they'll get sent to powder and then after that to assembly lines you can see raw metal here and here the shoot stock goes into the shell and then gets pulled off of these lasers automatically these things run pretty much fun even when we're not here or over the weekend would be kind of on alert protects one of the they're working on them now so everything's shut down but you can see these places are all run in different parts out and they basically run non-stop we keep them busy we keep having to add these things because we just need the capacity but you can see once it comes off these will unload themselves into stacks and then we'll bring it over here the guys will hammer out these parts and they come out pretty easy but they've got a little hammer around these parts and these are all individuals they're organized to try to be as efficient as possible use the entire sheet and then we have in August of space that doesn't get used as we're going to scrap off or recycle and then it'll be steel for somebody else somewhere else the lasers through this Iowa because most things need bent in some way these are all computer-controlled at all addresses that they're they're all programmed by part number to have the exact depth program be ready so that adjusts and people just beat a minute automatically once it comes through here it goes over to weld and that's this cell over here and we have a number of different both hand weld stations and robot stations but it'll go through some number some combination of all of that and you can see kind of this stuff is staged ready to go you can see it's been bent like this is a good example it's been bent here eventually it'll get welded the business this is ready to go through well now that's a mainframe for a boom mower well we'll see that when we go out there you see kind of how that that comes together but a lot of our attachments since we have a belt-driven pto have a hydraulic system built into the attachment but because it needs that extra function to perform all the tasks that's what we saw what the rock range right we were belt driving a hydraulic pump I'll Drive and hydraulic pumps a motor yes and so it allows us to use the belt drive that have eventually end up with hydraulic power so it's a good way to good mix of getting that hydraulic drive final drive who are Sanders run or just prep areas guys get stuff the clamp on the jig and then send it back to the robot that it welts consistently and it hasn't had a pattern to follow so this whole table it's going to rotate around off take the parts off that egyptian welders and press for the next one it'll start going into Wow that's cool could be a mower that main-deck show while the enemy but that whole assembly rotation tainted evidence has the robot words Wow now we can see the ring I assumed you to use these robots for more than just one part yeah it can be programmed for yeah yeah they can be programmed for all kinds of different stuff yeah we've still got hand welding going on justice certain things just make more sense to do it by hand this is basically the beginning of our 4,500 tractor line our 4,500 tractor is almost popular model it's most versatile get cells for the most different markets there's a lot of a lot of customers for this tractor it starts just as basically nothing transaxles on the cart and then as we go through the line you'll see every every new step is a new part a new process added to it turns out you look one piece that you have brought in yeah you're adding some more hydrogen's on the next step see the mainframe start to go on which is what would eventually be the engine bay this is your center pivot you can see where their articulation happens and also the fact that oscillates it's kind of controlled by this link down here but it allows for that motion this is our steering cylinder all the steering action the tractor has done just by moving a cylinder so there's three different locations obviously the inner circle is and that is the tightest turning radius you can use that with single wheels the center circle would be for dual wheels and in the outer limit cab it's looking like a tractor already yeah add a couple more things this is our SDL a lever you can see this ropes the pumps and motors actually to work eventually the seed will end up right over here this is where you're asking earlier hydraulic oil cooler yeah this is what it looks like when it's not encapsulated with all those shields fusebox this ends up going kind of right in there this tractor seat the bulk of this steel looks like like a pinch or something right ten days and yet equivalent and then some of us thicker than that but there's a lot of engineering there that makes it stronger pieces like this and there's some other rods and things that add to the strength I mean how long have you been making ventrac tractors the first one was 96 right around 90 say even that wasn't really a first generation tractor you had the earlier ones yeah or that were branded differently but they've been alter reliable tractors that's one of the things that we hear from customers is not the type of equipment that that they can can buy and kind of expect to be disposable and in some number of years we've got a lot of these things out there that have no got decades on them a pretty normal use so it's all hydraulic driven right I mean you got the engine up here you don't have any power shaft running through here this is just hydraulics and then there's I assume a pump yep somewhere here - maybe this is the main hydraulic feed all of all of the hydraulic drive stuff this gets funneled through these hoses to the back and then the front oh you're right these are the two made okay makes sense this is a hydraulic pump I just didn't see so the engine directly powered on your steering wheel goes how long does it spin in a given state bunch of marketing guys trying to explain how this thing's built right I'm actually impressed with it you do know so much about it and you are in marketing I mean they're really everyone we've met here knows about the director we haven't met anyone here so I don't think would not know how to use the track of course you didn't go to the HR department but we won't go there I think we've forced pretty much everybody onto these things to try out guys that's good to hear a lot of places I've worked people don't have a clue to what product they're actually working so I really love the family feel makes sense it's family-owned but it seems like everybody is involved at some level in the actual tractor no matter what the role is I really appreciate something unique to to this tractor is the weight transfer that we have built in so this this spring right here is kind of a it's a mechanical addition to the hydraulics of the front hydraulic hitch arms you can see with no hydraulic pressure this moves really easily there's no resistance here so if you had an attachment on the end of this and you put it in the float I mean it would just drop to the ground yes there's also something interesting yeah so we have it call it weight transfer I'll put another highest setting that ranges this spring so it changes where this spring engages the hitch arm and it adds some mechanical leverage so then there I can't yeah I think I need another cheeseburger Christine okay so on some of our heavier attachments it really helps to carry the weight of those and helpful to make it so the attachment doesn't drive the tractor so when you let it down it doesn't just drop like crazy and so that you don't have to have additional hydraulic cylinders to pick up they're really heavy attachment this makes perfect sense correct and what the main benefit too is that it transfers some of that force back to the front axle so it really increases traction so anytime you're working on a hillside or somewhere that where retraction can be limiting wet conditions or something having weight transfer engaged really helps the drivability just another one of the features that have these things try to engineer them in a way that that really tackle things practically yeah fuel tank some of you lines are in now so what do we got here we got an engine that's what that's a big addition on this step so this one looks like it's a Kubota engine so we have I think Christy you asked earlier we have four different engine options for this this tractor there are two Kubota engines one of them diesel one of them's gas and then we also have a kawasaki gas and a vanguard gas the Vanguard is an air-cooled and the Kawasaki is add EFI fuel injection the Kubota gas is our highest horsepower that's kind of the result of Tier four regulations okay so being a small tractor we don't have a lot of extra space to add the diesel particulate filters and stuff to get bigger diesel engines under that Tier four designation so we have to stick to the sub 20 five horse okay so this time we got a radiator yep we got a radiator on this step like a PTO clutch a lot of times the tractors coming down the line have a serial number in a destination already so it's specific what they're getting what type of engine or the type of accessories the way our tractors are built not every tractor leaves with a three-point butt but the ones that do are added during the assembly process because it's a much quicker way to do it than to do it after the fact looks like we're adding fluids at this step I believe these are hydraulic transfer modes is here and everything this is Kubota gasps like I said it's the most popular engine we've got air filter on now then that plumbed up this will be eventually the front fender here you can see as you release this this pulley comes down you would slip your belt on through your attachment and then you have something extra here these are crucial wheels but this one's getting a suspension seat so that's an option another converted gas but this one you can tell we're pretty close to finished on this tractor basically laughing bites the hood and a couple finishing touches and this thing should be about ready to go so this is this is the official end of the assembly line and then after that some tractors end up getting a couple they're usually the ROPS get sent in the crate that'll get it installed by the dealer before our customer picks it up before shipping logistics this little jig here really bar this goes onto the tractor when it's done and sees the floor is real slick out here where it's polished this tractor will come off and they'll run a full throttle backwards and forwards a few times to make sure there's no pressure spikes there's no leaks hydraulic issues kind of make sure everything's seated correctly and ready to go before it gets the customer suspension seat that's something you need coz of all the cheeseburgers you eat yeah yeah yeah I need a little extra suspension ona the dial is actually in G this is what we call our SS V stands for sidewalks no vehicle this is our newest tractor and it's a little bit of a departure compared to our normal tractors because obviously straight frame no articulation this is essentially a skinnier set up the same way so has four independent hydraulic wheel motors it's been great to see and walk through a successful and thriving manufacturing shop here in the good old USA please check out our website track your time with Tim calm and thanks for watching everybody we'll see you next time on tractor time with Tim [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Tractor Time with Tim

Views: 39,728

Rating: 4.9487181 out of 5

Keywords: Tractor Time with Tim, compact tractor, John Deere, Kubota, Mahindra, Kioti, Yanmar, Ventrac, Orrville Ohio, ventrac mower, ventrac 4500, behind the scenes, factory tour, educational, articulated tractors compact, articulated tractor, sub compact tractor, sub compact tractor comparison, utility tractor attachments, utility tractor, front mounted attachments, hillside mowing equipment, slopes, turf, compact tractor landscaping, manufacturing, manufacturing facility tour, assembly line

Id: U1ACc9ur8fE

Length: 15min 10sec (910 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 26 2018