EarthRoamer 2023 - How its made factory tour

[Music] earthwormer's been around for 25 years it was actually founded by Jerome by the name of Bill swales who unfortunately passed away a little over a year ago um he was a wildlife photographer was his passion and after he threw away a couple of truck campers because he was too cold and too wet while filming in Alaska decided to set about and create the perfect expedition vehicle that would allow him to get out in the wild do what he did best and still be comfortable at the same time first vehicle rolled out of the factory in 1999 since that time we have over 350 vehicles on the road only two have ever been taken out of service currently we're producing about 40 Vehicles a year and I was fortunate to join the company about two years ago when Bill hired me based on my manufacturing experience to be the president and CEO so you have a unique background that I would think would be is super well suited to earth roamer so tell us a little bit about your own personal background I appreciate you asking about me but what it's really about here at earthroamer or the 114 of the finest Colorado Craftsman that you're ever going to find we have an extremely proud Workforce if you look in the parking lot you'll see a lot of pickup trucks through top tents and kayaks on board you walk throughout our Factory you're going to see The Pride they take regardless of what job they're doing for us we have outstanding diesel mechanics outstanding chassis technicians our composite technicians come out of both the wind energy Industries here in Colorado as well as the Aerospace Industries and then really our craftsmanship really shines through in our woodworking every piece of wood you see out there on that factory floor has been hand cut hand rubbed hand finished before it's installed in the vehicles for you hi folks I'm meth with two guys riding today Rob and I are here just north of Denver Colorado and we're here at none other than earth roamer now if you haven't checked out our two videos of the earth SX and the earth roamer LTI click the links above but we're here today to talk about what goes into making an earthworm or the quality the craftsmanship the design the testing it's an incredible place and we're here with Scott Scott you're the CEO of earthroamer thank you for having us here today thrilled to be here I have the world's greatest job and welcome to earthroamer the world's Premier manufacturer of luxury Expedition vehicles and you're gonna see just Why when we take the factory tour so I know we like looking this beautiful Beast behind us we'll always step into the factory and take you on a tour looking forward to it all right all right so we are now inside the factory and we're with Zach Zach thanks for take your time to absolutely go through the factory of course now you have an interesting job here at the company so tell us a little bit about that so I'm the customer experience manager for earth roamer so my job is once a customer takes delivery of the truck helping them understand the full Earth normal lifestyle what you can do with the truck where you can take it uh best practices and uses I also do all of the deliveries for customers with uh all the training so when you take delivery of an earth trimmer there's a lot to learn and with all of that to learn we want to set you up for success and get you ready for Big Adventures whether you're going straight to Alaska or down to Baja or wherever you want to be going and then we also do guided trips as well if you don't want to do that on your own so we will do our Earth armor Adventures program on our owners rallies where we put together a calendar every year of different places that we are traveling and if you'd like to come with us and a group of other owners we all go and say explore Moab together or the rain and Tetons or Pacific Northwest maybe we'll do Alaska with you something along those lines so you get to be with a group you get to experience everything and you also kind of get to learn from some of the employees here on the skills you might need to use the truck most effectively so as I understand right you deliver the vehicle to the owner most of the time we have owners who choose to come to the factory they want to see the factory they want to see where their truck is built and um but there's a there's a long Training Day process just to make sure you're ready for night one and that is all included oh yeah absolutely and their price which is outstanding customer service is my point well we like to say that we live vicariously through our customers we like to see the trucks on the road because we're all aspiring earth roamer owners ourselves everybody who works here so uh what we what we enjoy most is setting people up for success and giving them the opportunity to go out and live the adventures that we would love to do in an earth roamer as well and hopefully will one day we have an annual owner's rally every year where we bring everybody back together and it's just like a big family reunion so we'll go out Way Off the Grid and spend a couple days all catching up and seeing what people have been doing throughout the last year and all the adventures they've been taking and the fun part about it is too we'll bring our side of the earth armor family which is the employees to the owner's rally and we'll be we'll give people the opportunity to meet the the people who actually built their truck so you want to meet the people on the floor it's really fun when customers get the opportunity to say or meet somebody who says hi I'm the guy who built your shell I'm the one who did your woodwork I'm the one who installed or fabricated your bumpers and those people sitting around the campfire all kind of talking about adventures together is a lot of fun all right so we're here in the engineering department uh Earth Roma we're here with tying we're here with Ryan thanks for spending a little time with us tonight excellent well thank you guys yeah yeah I just think it's incredible that earth roamer has its own Engineers I mean it makes complete sense because everything most of us in-house built someone's got to design it right so um Ryan why don't you just run us through a little bit about what the engineering department Hall does so right now we have about six Engineers we engineer everything from the chassis metal fabrication Composites wood Electrical Plumbing everything comes from the engineering department so the entire earth roamer product comes from digits you know the the the the composite shell it's all carbon fiber so you know you guys have to have some safety specs on it so talk to us a little bit about that 100 so when we go to design a camper show we come up with the oml the outside model lines what we want it to look like from there we go ahead and take an initial analysis and go ahead and say you know establish what is called called a laminate schedule which is you know the layers of carbon and your core call outs we then go ahead and Outsource it to a company called war tech and have if you know finite element analyzed they analyze it at a 5G drop and about a one and a half G side load from there we go ahead and identify any weak points in the show readjust the laminate schedule go ahead and add Mulligans and other things like that which is Big pieces of steel or aluminum inside of the camper shells to deal with those stress concentrations then have it fe8 again and you know so far we haven't ever had to have one FEA more than twice before we go ahead and take care of all those stress analysis and then we're ready to go ahead and order core kits and begin to build that what what brought you to earth roamer what was the attraction what was the drop no 100 I was you know I was about three years out of school uh working construction uh one night came home after being cold and miserable all day and uh saw a job description uh to come to Earth from her and I thought it would be the great best fit ever I mean I get to build big toys for a living I have no complaints whatsoever I I envy you yeah Ryan what about you um so I went to school down in uh in Arizona but I grew up here just south here in Thornton Colorado um I've been driving past North Carolina my whole life and once I graduated I came home to visit my family and spent some time not as a student anymore right uh saw that Arizona came down applied and Ty actually hired me on um very passionate about what we do here um the whole Overland Community very uh very interesting to me so all right Ryan thank you so much for spending your time with us today we sure appreciate it of course thank you all right so show us how they're made sounds good so we're starting out here in the uh the chassis department now our chassis Department are the guys who will take a factory Ford F-550 or a Chevy 6500 for our new model line uh and tear it all the way down from what you could buy off of the dealership lot um and tear it down to Bear frame rails tear out the entire interior cut the back wall out of the cab and then kind of build up from there so we can actually talk to one of our chassis technicians about exactly everything that they do here and uh and and how it works and the process that they do to make this ready to become the foundation of an earthroamer all right well let's do that sounds good all right so Mark nice to meet you so this is where the magic starts this is it so tell us what you do um so we take the factory chassis we strip it down pull wheels and tires off all the factory suspension uh we cut this big hole in the back wall install a substructure to reinforce it which will become the pass through later on from there we cut the fenders out to clearance the 43-inch tires there's a lot of chopping and cutting up there that goes on we do the camper mounts will go on here so we draw the holes for the front camper mounts and then from there on the frame wise we extend the frame 40 inches we install a pivot Mount to allow the camper to Pivot independently from the chassis because the chassis will actually have is pretty rigid and the suspension needs to work underneath the chassis so we don't have fractures and stuff so the the actual camper can swivel independently correct of the frame yep so all that moves underneath it okay of course is the reinforcement piece yeah actually a 3 8 plate which is on the ground over there which will be the reinforcement that will go over top of here okay and then this will be the link mount um for the parallel four link yeah so it's all reinforced all welded super beefy and yet you maintain the Ford factory warranty on the the drive shaft transmission yep so we don't touch any of the drive shafts transmission axle housings they come with 48 gears to match the tires to spin them real nicely um yeah I mean it's all factory warranty so um now this one is in process right but you've got one behind us that is actually almost ready to roll to the next stage so that one's ready to move on let's step over there and take a look at that so this is finished um here's the pivot line I was talking about all right here the camper will sit on top of here okay and this is actually you can see how it's not level right now right now that moves with the camper so the camper does have some Flex in the body between there and here but obviously such a long distance is not flexing as much but it gives it enough that it's not stressing correct and then of course you run all the holes just get everything ready yep so this is the air ride manifold in the air tank this is what controls the air suspension but also we have a air Chuck one on each side one on the front and one on the back so you can Plumb into those use air tools to fill up tires whatever you need and that and it comes with a about a 25 foot hose I believe I believe yeah so you know one of the things that surprised me after seeing them at SEMA was exactly how stripped out the interior gets now this one's had some of these here put back in right but their stripped right down to Bare Metal yep we uh take everything out of the Interior some of the internal trim pieces you can see that are missing around the vents and all that those all get carbon fiber wrapped to match just to add that little bit extra touch in there well you know Mark let me just ask you one more question you know what what made you or what's your background before you came to earthroam um so I actually have a geography degree okay and uh so right out of college um I made the mistake of not taking the computer classes that I needed to like really go into a field and use that degree but my buddy started at 40 Parts before I graduated college I had already built a few cars and trucks and stuff and done a lot of work so I started working at 40 parts right out of college and then moved to Denver in 2020 which was a great year to move yeah and yeah started looking for a job found Earth armor I was like there's no way they're going to hire me that's two high ends and here I am and I've been I have produced about 90 chassis at this point but you've had you you had that I would say one key component whereas you have that log for cars yeah so it started and I just started building and then continued with it and now I'm doing some crazy stuff so it is amazing it's not the way these are built mark thank you so much for taking this John to wear this part we're gonna head to the next part of the factory sounds good thanks all right so uh Zach you know we're back in another section of the factory um and this is where we're gonna again see the craftsmanship the quality uh that goes into to making the inside of the earth roamer what particular area are we at so this is our wood department and this is actually one of the largest Apartments of Earth's Roamer every single piece inside of an earthroamer that you see that is the beautiful finished wood has been either hand cut hand rubbed uh polished fitted everything all here and uh and it's really amazing because we were able to work with a lot of different species of wood based on the customer's request and we have a lot of very dedicated skilled Craftsmen here who who put a lot of Pride and a lot of energy into such a beautiful piece of of wood in the truck uh that you will just see continuing to flow throughout the entire entire interior and you know and we noticed that when we were at SEMA just the fit and the finish of the end product is is astounding yeah that you don't see in other campers I mean this is craftsmanship we really like to say that um it's it's closer to like a yacht oh yeah uh fit and finish where we put a lot of energy into trying to make sure all of our gaps look perfect not only on delivery day but 10 15 years later and so there's a lot of engineering behind uh the beautiful craftsmanship as well that allows for everything to work the same way to make all of our latches and our gaps and our doors and everything work the same way and look the same way 10 15 20 years down the line as it did on delivery day so that it kind of feels like a Timeless product wherever you're going to be taking your truck you want that wood to still look and work the same way and not have too many issues with with humidity and with temperature changes so we will stick to known materials that we have kind of perfected like a recipe throughout the years right which which again speaks to the to the quality of the vehicle not only the day you buy it but you know 10 20 30 years down the road absolutely yeah we really want these to to last a lifetime and then some thanks for joining us absolutely so Alex uh tell us where you know we're in the the department where everything anything that's wood and the Earth realm where it is made so talk to us about the you know the Craftsman you've got working uh and you know the the quality uh and how you put things together so it all starts off with our hardwood lumber that we get back there in the back of our shop um and we just get it raw and we get each one of our technicians to Mill out their own Lumber and from there they start to produce uh these projects whether it's the Cabinetry it's the under bunk it's the bunk cabinets themselves we have dedicated Craftsmen in each of these positions that play a role and each portion of the drug build whether it's from building it outside or getting it installed inside the truck everyone has a unique position here very dedicated to what we do and we have some of the finest Woodworkers here that keep that crop quality on some of the lumber so we don't use anything that doesn't meet our standard yeah and you know in looking at the wood that goes in you know to the vehicle I mean even like for the drawer covers correct you'll use the same wood the same piece and wood to keep the grain going in the same direction absolutely and it's actually sanding just this some little things earlier you were doing a little fit and finish correct on one just to make sure that for you know the the the the drawers and the everything the frame stayed straight correct so yeah uh you do a lot of different things in there absolutely yes I play a lot of hats here so what basically wherever I'm needed in the wood Department I tend to fill in um so whether it's fitting drawers installing ceiling trim or finishing up at the back end uh dusting all of our hardware and things like that that's kind of where I fit in for a lot of this okay let's let's take a look walk back here because you have got a CNC machine absolutely that does some of your cutting and you've actually got your uh your raw supply of wood absolutely yes so back here is our technician Eric and he actually receives all the plywood he stocks it over here and he brings it to the CNC and he runs off of a schedule where he cuts everything for of all the cabinets uh sofa tops um butcher blocks uh basically everything that gets into runs through him and this is where also a lot of it does start too on the on the plywood side and then he's the one to make sure that the piece of wood that's selected is is also absolutely does it I mean you you can even request things like I want a pine that doesn't have knots I want mine that has some knots I won't find that has a lot of them you know I mean absolutely yeah it really customize it um and then uh of course you know you have all the bins for the different builds yes correct so these are the bins that he fills with all the parts that are necessary for the Cabinetry and from here are our technicians come and grab everything that they need so everything is labeled per car per truck um so it's easy to find and access and not every part I mean not that's interesting thing is not every business the same because the customer can customize what they want in the vehicle correct correct so you may delete something and add uh I want a couch here instead of a countertop correct so you can have a little bit different kinds of wood here yes correct so Alex tell us a little bit about how you came to work for earthworm what's what's your background what's my background of this carpentry so I started off doing drafting engineering for a Millwork company and I kind of worked my way through that I realized that I did like installing so I kind of got out on the field for a little while and eventually I saw a job opening here and this was kind of one of my dream jobs because I went to high school down the street so so you're already seen her correct I've already heard about it yes and so when I finally had the credentials to come and work for earthroam I applied and they were happily uh with open arms taking me in and well I think I think they're very lucky to have gotten here I appreciate that Alex thank you for your time absolutely sharing your knowledge with us we appreciate it no thank you all right let's step up to the next area all right so we just went through you know the crap the wood department where they're men that while they're making the Wood Farms right but this is the finishing requirement correct yeah so this is the Wood Finishing department so after the pieces have been cut from the raw materials they've been uh bench built maybe they've been pre-fit into the actual assembly the trucks themselves they will come to the finishing Department here where also depending on the species of wood that the customer chooses they can also pick different colors for stains they can pick different uh finishes they can even pick whether or not they will distress the pieces to make it look maybe like a reclaimed barn wood or something like that so and we can talk to Tim our wood department manager a little bit more about that because he has all of the knowledge about all the different pieces we see in here going through the finishing process excellent all right Tim nice to meet you nice to meet you so you know customers have a lot of opportunities to customize what the woodwork that goes into their Earth Rover oh absolutely and so tell us about some of the some of the things that they can do um basically we have a hole as you can see in the background here we have a whole selection of colors um but there are more than those those are just some current ones okay uh but they basically they would work with the sales team they pick the color of the uh wood they want they pick between uh White Oak Alder Maple uh Hardwoods um you just saw the wood department so basically everything comes out of the wood department has been thoroughly inspected for any flaws any cross grain scratching comes over here to the Finish department where they'll do another brief inspection uh just make sure there's no flaws um they will then hand stained paint will you hand wipe all of our stains and then um the top there's three top coats of a conversion varnish super durable finish man so I mean it's just impressive and that they're doing a quality check before it leaves you're doing another quality check when it gets here and then each piece is of course done according to how absolutely each piece is hand finished by hand um actually our checks are so uh in-depth that even one of the options we offer is hand distressing where we basically Nick the cabinets beat them up a little bit even those cabinets when they come over here come over here with a full inspection so that they could be finished as is uh we we do not let anything come over here that has any kind of flaw even if it's getting distressed so then they'll also they will use a selection of tools to do hand distressing simulate some scratches some gouging some dents uh what not so tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to earthroam um so actually I just uh just had my sixth year anniversary I started in the wood shop uh building cabinets actually in phase three um actually I worked with Zach in uh phase three for a while um and then uh I got to the point where I could do my schedule in in a real shorter period of time started working on the HD project um then took over the wood shop in HD uh then was appointed lead for lti1 to bring that online um then worked my way just worked my way through all the I I've managed in some shape or form quite a few of the Departments here uh Russell basically the I managed the wood shop uh finish Department CNC upholstery shop and uh I now manage our production manager for SX product line all right well it's always helpful I think to have somebody who has that sort of a general knowledge uh you know in an area where that they they know where it's coming from what it takes and where it's going yeah and what it's going to look like at the end yep yeah at the end of the day basically my background is custom Cabinetry and finishing uh so that that's kind of my bread and butter uh so yeah so the basically you got these departments and then uh basically all the Departments I run other than the SX we classify under Fitness finish so it's it's the stuff you see the second you walk in the truck okay and you know before you came to Earth from it did you work in woodworking or finishing up I actually had my I had my own Uh custom Cabinet countertop shop back in Michigan really okay so so this was something you studied for I actually learned your own business yep built long before you came here oh yeah yeah I've I've been a woodworker pretty much all my life I mean you know the point I'm getting to again is that quality and that craftsmanship that goes into that earth roamer absolutely again you know what when you look at any other vehicle you would purchase uh or a camper you're you're paying for that customization you're paying for those years of experience and so we can see here you know working in the Wood Finishing Department right you you had your own business in Cabinetry building which is it's almost exactly what you're doing here a few extra pieces but the same concept so it just lends to the to the whole idea of um the value that you're getting when you buy an earthworm oh absolutely that's one of the things that people don't really see they at the end of the day they see the the sticker price and they don't realize what goes in I mean just between the wood shop and the Finish department is hours and hours that goes into every single cabinet because we don't uh I mean one of the things we don't do is we don't caulk gaps and we don't use trims to hide gaps everything in the truck has to fit like it's supposed to no exceptions that is that is the quality our customers expect and this that is quality we we give them which leads back to what we talked about earlier Zach and that is that um you know it you you use specific words so the uh for the longevity of the vehicle so 10 years down the road with humidity and high temperatures extreme temperatures you don't have morphine you don't have separation but right awesome thank you so much Tim for spending your time with us thank you we appreciate it all right all right Zach on to the next location all right so we we stepped to the next apartment here tell us where we're at Zach so this is the earth roamer metal shop so we start here in the Machining area where Steve our machinist is running the three different uh machines in here to produce a lot of the different parts that go into an earth roamer um we we keep talking about quality and one of the nice things is that when we are building in-house and when we can do our Machining in-house we have a lot of control over uh making sure that products are uniform but also making sure that we have access to new developing products uh new things that we need to build either custom or evolving throughout our technology now after Steve has built a lot of the different raw good materials into Parts in the Machine Shop you will also be transitioning a lot of those over to our fabrication shop on the other side of the wall here where we have three different welders who are going to be assembling a lot of the different parts like bumpers and swing out boxes exterior kitchens the frame extensions we saw in the chassis Department the reinforcements for that all of the different metal parts that come together to make an earthroamer as special as it is and as rugged as it is you know I it it's starting to strike me as as we're going through here that there is so much earth roamer in earth roamer yes you manufacture a lot of your own stuff yes so there are a lot of parts throughout the build where I think there is this um this misconception that we are buying off the shelf Parts in order to just assemble a camper when that couldn't really be further from the truth um whether it be again our bumpers here in the metal shop frame extensions and all of the fabrication fabricated pieces for the chassis to in our composite shop building all of our own fender flares all of our own fuel cups all of our own um shower walls and basins uh if it's a composite even in the rear seats in the truck yeah our upholstery shop we'll see that um we're doing all of our own in-house upholstery so that we can retain the quality and we can control the quality and the supply chain uh so that everything comes out as a earth roamer quality uh product and we can always maintain our standard well that being said let's take a look at the the next part of the metal shot now let's go check out what the welders are working on all right all right so we are where so this is our other side of the metal shop this is going to be where the welders are doing all the fabricating of pieces um that we'll see turning into kind of the hard Goods of an earth Rover so here they'll build they'll be building rear bumpers front bumpers the frame extensions the frame reinforcements and all the chassis components um as well as a lot of the small Goods so if we're seeing little things like brackets or a little framework okay in different ways throughout the truck they'll be building that here and then supplying that to our Assembly Hall to do final installation of those components okay which again I mean that you just mentioned so many different components that go on when you when you look at the truck you just kind of see the overall thing but all of these things yeah are hand built one it's one of the questions we get a lot from people is that's such a cool front bumper who makes it and where can I get one and we always remind them these are earth roamer Parts meant specifically for earth roamer so love to give you a bumper if you're buying our drummer there you go just have to buy an earth roamer to get one sounds good to me all right so uh can we talk to one of the the welders that's here yeah so we can talk to John here John does a lot of our MIG welding and build steer our steel parts like right now it looks like he's working on a uh a rear bumper belt all right John nice to meet you nice to meet you thank you all right so John tell us a little bit about how you came to work for earth roamer well just like anybody else just a interesting crazy Journey trying different things out seeing what shoes fit quote unquote and uh you know I've always been a Hands-On person played with Legos as a kid and uh you know kind of in my adult life I decided I didn't want to sit in front of a computer all day and send emails to people so went back to school and here I am learned how to weld it at a later age yep man I I gotta tell you we've been admiring this work because I mean it takes us a high level of skill to get something welded together to look beautiful yep uh now this is one of the rear bumpers um I mean and you put all everything together that is this this comes in sections and pieces yep so this is one piece the Top's another so I mean how long does it take you to make a bumper um so it I've gotten to the point now where it's about nine hours so when you look at an earth roamer you see that rear bumper that's nine person hours just that that's not painting it that's not adding all the fixtures that's not Mom yet that's just just building it just sticking it together man so it's it's not something that's just slapped together it's something that's very carefully but I mean it looks beautiful I mean when you see them on the truck it's no wonder why people say could I could I buy one of those bumpers separately yeah and you can always buy for the price of an earth roamer exactly I mean I mean it is just amazing John I mean I just I I I gotta hand it to you for your ability to weld I mean and make it look like it was never like it was born that way yeah so you know we take a lot of Pride we do in in the metal shop and everybody else here can say the same thing so you know everything anytime a bumper or a rear box anything that comes out of the metal shop you know we put our heart and soul into it you know this is this is what we do for a living and we're proud of what we do and um it really shows is you have all this craftsmanship going into so many details we got people like you and the others that are working here that has so much detail so much experience and spend so much time doing it I mean it's it's like a piece of art yeah very much so so John thank you so much for spending your time with us today we sure appreciate it so tell us what we have here so now we're in our upholstery department so Earth drummer upholstery does all of the soft goods in the truck um that may be couch cushions that may be curtains that's the upholstered pass-through that is the threshold between the cab and the camper and then there's even a lot of parts that some people may not think about like for instance uh we have to build rear captains chairs uh because you can't order a pickup truck with uh without a bench rear seat with Captain chairs so we want to build it so that we give that OEM feel that high quality um and so we will do those kind of things all in-house and a lot of this is still in the customizable portion of the build for the customer hi Oscar so walk us through the process in here well there's a lot of different processes going on what in what uh okay so let's talk about you know if it's a like a cushion okay a Christian uh well we start with leather obviously um we have like a certain uh there's different Leathers that the customer can choose this is just one um type of leather that is For an upcoming truck so um when the customer gets with sales they go through all of the different leather options that they can get some customers will do fabric as well okay some fabric so we'll get the leather and then we will um depending on what the uh what the uh truck layout is then we'll have different um different cushion options okay so if it's a Breckenridge then we have the patterns for Breckenridge and we'll cut those out we have um pattern templates in the back okay we've cut that out and then we all sew them by hands all hand cut hand sewn hand cut and hand sewn and sewn so then like over here what you would cut this is where you would cut the leather yeah I could take you in the back and show you some of uh our patterns that we use what kind this is the Aspen which is just the one solid cushion uh then you have the dinette and that's the Breckenridge there where you have uh two cushions and then you have the dinette so there's like five or six floor floor plans from uh I believe that they can kind of choose different options some with dinette some without right right you know just just those little you know little items that you consider yes when you're you know you're not just like okay it's another question definitely not you're like I don't know what color is the outside what color is this what color is that yeah and can I find something that's going to blend with that absolutely so yeah we have the different uh breather material here that goes on the back of the cushions so we have a really wide ranging palette that we can use to you know bring out the best in the customer's truck let's talk about seats a little bit because in the back of the truck there's a bench seat when it comes that gets taken out and you put in these Captain's chairs so sir I don't know how you did this in like the five minutes we were gone but uh just walk us through the process yeah no it's a very involved process um okay Lana she's working on our our seats right now she's very talented uh member of our team and uh so yeah we start with everything comes in a basically in a bundle um everything's separate we have to solve the the um the the fee to accommodate the uh the the bottoms that are going to be okay okay on the on the racks all of these pieces here we cut by hand uh the the classic pieces we installed by hand everything here that you see it's all done by hand it's a it's a very intensive manual process but um it's kind of is it so in here no no okay these uh these covers come to us okay but all of the insides are all done by us all right it's all like when we were here yeah metal plate yeah exactly I mean that's just that's just amazing okay and the middle part isn't typically what upholstery does like as as a as an industry or as a craft but here at Earth rumor of course everything's all inclusive so sometimes we uh have to extend our knowledge base and skill base to like fit what needs to be done so and obviously you've got a couple different sewing stations up here yes and then uh part of your foam trimming for for these yeah these are for the pass-through plugs so these are the plugs that will um that will separate right the cab from the camper yep so if you're in the camper you don't have to heat the whole truck you just heat the camper part so we have these plugs to you know keep keep it climate controlled so yeah Oscar what was your uh background before coming to unthrower done a few things I've but I've basically worked leather for about 20 years wow yeah I had my own uh shop in Los Angeles where I'm originally from so everything done by hand as well there so I kind of come from that you know hand handmade background background which was a nice fit here definitely obviously lots of talent here oh my God a lot of talent everyone here that works in this apartment is extremely talented and everyone brings certain strengths and knowledge from their background so we all kind of borrow from each other and make this department the best that it can be and that I think it shows in the product that we put out it absolutely does show but most people don't realize how much work yeah effort it's a lot into creating it's a lot of work a lot of talent it's amazing a lot of um you really have to be extremely precise when you put a hole in leather yeah that's no I'm doing it it isn't like you know uh garments where you can take take something out and do when once that hole's in the leather that's it so it has to look good it has to be precise so that Precision is something that everyone in the team brings Oscar thank you so much for spending your time with us thank you sure appreciate it thank you sir all right and we're off to the next station all right so uh what stage are we at so this is actually the assembly portion of the process the where we're actually putting all the different pieces we've seen together okay into the actual camper and this is actually where the camper will become an earthroamer okay so we can start over here this is kind of going to be uh where assembly starts with an empty shell all right so when we go look inside we'll see that this shell which has just come out of our Composites shop on site has already had the entire one piece carbon fiber body built and we've also sprayed this one with our x-guard material which is that um bed liner style finish on the outside and inside we see the empty shell that is getting ready to get its whole Stringer Network and all of the the bones inside essentially that put together what we need behind our walls and our Cabinetry as well as pre-running all of our electrical our plumbing all the things that get hidden behind the scenes before the rest of the the rest of the assembly goes in okay all right so are they doing foam insulation here yeah so this stage here now has all of the Stringer Network installed that's going to be the place that we can connect and mount all of our Cabinetry to and all of our electronics and uh they've also already done the spray in foam insulation that gives us really good R value um and they're actually in the process of scraping that all flush so that we have nice surfaces to mount everything to yeah what was CR the rvr rating on this again it was so so uh the R value changes throughout different parts of the truck but we've got our value of anywhere from r25 or higher that's high yeah okay so what you put the the stringers go in that gives you the ability to have chemical a fake wall so to speak that you can run all the wires all the plumbing yep electrical so our stringers are designed to essentially make what is a round interior surface or curved interior surface into a square surface that we can do all of our Cabinetry our wire chases uh our plumbing everything else is a little bit easier to build in a box instead of a curved surface okay hello I'm Jonathan I'm a general lead technician here at earthroamer all right so we're in the final assemble assembly area so are you overseeing like all over this floor here the whole process leading up into the QC process I do work with the tax on a day-to-day basis and help them troubleshoot any issues that come up okay so basically you're you're looking for any issues that are not solved at that point or during installation something comes up correct all right so tell us a little bit about the team of people that you work with while everybody here is extremely talented to build the best thing on the road you have to have the best people with the best talents doing it so do they all come from an automotive background or some yes not everybody myself I'm from the Marine background I used to build boats in Florida for Sea Ray oh okay it's very similar it you know a lot with your electronic components and having to waterproof them it absolutely it is what brought you to Earth Rover my wife and I lived full-time in an RV for seven years uh before that my dad has been an off-road liver for almost 20 years now so off-grid and mobile living has been part of my life uh when I came to Colorado I used to drive by here a lot and I always thought it would be a really cool thing so when I saw it come up I jumped on the opportunity and here I am hello my name is Richard and I'm the production manager here at earthroamer so Richard you know I understand that you know you've done a lot of things for earthroamer before arriving in this position you know as a general manager you are you have to be knowledgeable about all areas it's trying to be so you've actually worked and managed almost every area of earthroamer prior to coming to this position that is accurate so what brought you to Earth Rover it's the lifestyle um and something new something different um I had oil field experience before this and I was also uh in the restoration uh fire water sewage mold okay and this was just an opportunity to to do something really neat something unique it's a very unique team a very broad sense of um it's a very broad skill set going across here young and old never too old to learn never too young to teach and we keep that here this team it's such a well-oiled machine when we run into a problem these guys are already working on a solution very seldom do they come to me with a problem they always come to me with two or three solutions um and that really really helps I've got a great team um standing behind me it makes me look good I'll tell you that Richard thank you so much for your time we appreciate it you bet take care now the way our assembly floor works is there are multiple phases um that the trucks are built in and about every six days or so uh truck rolls from phase one into phase two from phase two into phase three and all of them are shifting down the line so what that means is we are actually delivering a truck uh somewhere between every six to eight days uh because the last one that rolls off the end of the line is rolling right into customer hands okay so um everything that we're seeing here are these shells that are currently sitting on carts that will roll from face to face and each technician is specialized in his phase so we have the phase three electrician or the phase two woodworker who specializes in his part of the build and he develops those skills over several months learning how to perfect his area Okay and then we actually after people have enough expertise in one area we will start moving them to other stations and other phases so that we have a lot of cross training going on what that cross training allows for us to do is essentially develop the technicians into somebody who can almost build one start to finish they can jump in anywhere they can float and they can help in all different parts of the build process it's also really nice because you get to learn a little bit of everything absolutely now yeah yeah absolutely you know and so a lot of these are pretty done boxes with wiring yep so all the Cabinetry was built in our wood shop including all of the framing behind it and then that is delivered to our electrical department who are hand building all of their own harnesses and they are assembling all these different components and a lot of these items are bench built right over in the other corner of this room so that it's a little bit easier installation and so that they can make sure that it looks the same every single time you know we were commenting a little bit earlier when we were visiting but you know just the the gauge of some of the wires is massive yeah so we run very powerful systems in these trucks and one of the reasons for that is that we don't ever want customers to have to rely on external sources of power when they're out camping so we run everything off of solar and Lithium-ion batteries we don't have an onboard generator but at the same time we still want customers to be able to run their air conditioning run their stove their oven their microwave right we want them to be able to run these big appliances off of the house systems and all of that is based on Lithium-ion batteries and a massive solar Bank on the roof so that's why we see large gauge wires all over the truck is because all of these systems are going to be running from those single sources of power and not expected to use like a Shore power or a generator or some of the other things that limit you to being in a formal Campground I'm Shea Devereaux I'm the lead for electrical earth roamer all right so and we're in the electrical department so can you talk to us a little bit about you know what what goes on right here yep so this is our bench build area it all starts right over here on the tables we have two bench builders for our LTI model and we have one right now for our SX model it's going to be growing like crazy so I'm sure we'll be adding that bench build uh process a little bit more so this is this really helps the the the process when you're uh finishing up the truck in this stage right oh yeah because a lot of electronics then come in in a box yep Ready to mount but it's easier to work on outside the vehicle when you're making these than it is to have them in there yep okay so um you know you have a team that works for you okay tell us a little bit about your team uh unbelievable guys I mean the the background that we have everybody's so different and spread out I mean nobody's worked on an earth roamer before to come get a job here okay so I mean we have guys that were mechanics guys that were wiring up service rooms then we have guys that are doing underwater IP cameras and coral reefs it's kind of spread out so the knowledge we can get from just each guy in our team we're learning every day and as mentioned that you mentioned that I mean you're taking some very vast backgrounds but you're looking at it as an advantage oh yeah rather than a disadvantage so now this is a large area right here so you're not only in this area you actually take some of the your finished boxes take them over and help with the install yep and that's that's the biggest thing about our bench department is we try to get as much as we possibly can done on this bench because as you can see we're buzzing in here and yes it's all about the dance I mean we got to be great with wood team with a general team with the finished department and we're all in there and just because it just all matches right in that right in time doesn't it you get there then put together in time but beautifully done thank you so much for making your time with us we sure appreciate it appreciate you what an awesome product awesome thank you so this phase here is where we're starting to see a lot of the final assembly pieces coming in we see cabinet doors being fitted drawers drawer fronts being fitted um and then we're starting to do systems testing um at a little bit more intense and involved level in this phase this is also where the cab assembly is coming together so the pass-through the all the systems for driving all of those things are coming together in this phase when we move into the next phases which are currently uh trucks that are out on test drive at the moment okay these are going to be where we start getting indoor quality control phases so every single truck is tested extensively to make sure all the systems are working and they're not only working by just turning them on and off but they're working as a customer would use them we don't we we don't feel confident uh in delivering a truck until we know we've taken it a little bit off-road we know that we've used a lot of these systems we've run the plumbing and all the appliances and everything else um time and time again not only through the phases but at the end here so that when a customer takes delivery we can say firmly we know that plumbing system works the electrical systems work we have tested all of these things we have a lot of the time run coffee through the coffee maker in case the coffee maker were to have any problems we'd catch those things before it leaves all right so I mean it's just really neat and I think unique that you put that much time into testing I mean you're testing at all you're actually taking it out off-road you're you know testing the plumbing all that kind of stuff um that's that is a lot of uh it's a lot of quality control yep well we we kept talking about quality throughout our entire walk through the factory and we want the end user to feel that so there's there's a lot of quality in the build process we also want that quality to translate into the end product and that's where we want to make sure that everything works we want to make sure that it is exactly how a customer might want it and um at the end of the day we really want to see these trucks being used for what they were designed for we really want to see them going on Extreme Adventures we want to see it taking people to Alaska for the first time on their own power we want to see people doing things like South America or we want to see we want to see amazing travels to places where you don't have to rely necessarily on the grid but we want to feel confident in telling customers this is a vehicle that you can trust off-grade it's because um you know one of the things when you buy when you buy an earth roamer is I mean some seriously personal level service correct so tell us tell us all about that so we handle the truck from the time it is sold and keys are handed out to the new owner basically to the life of the truck whether it's that owner or the next owner or whatever it is we try to make sure that customer service is right there with them if they have any questions issues and like that we're there to assist so okay so you know the trucks are big and so you know not every garage let's say you live in a different state you know can can uh can can fit them or have a lift big enough but you have some workarounds around that that you work with your customers who who aren't able to bring them right into your to your factory correct so tell us a little bit about that so if the truck is under warranty and we have something we need to fix anywhere else we will assist them in either we're walking them through how to fix it on their own um step by step on FaceTime anything like that or if it needs to get to a shop we will contact a shopper near them find them ways to do it uh assist that shop and letting them know what's coming in exactly how big it is how they can assist a lot of times if anyone needs to do fluids or anything like that we actually don't have lifts in our service department truck's big enough to get under there and do a lot of things on their own so a lot of that's easy to work on it makes it a little bit easier for we kind of have to walk the shop through it and let them know right it's possible or we can walk that shop through things if they call us we send them parts we send them assistance in like that and did I understand right earlier when we were talking that actually you have somebody when when someone calls into earthwormer for service they don't get an answering machine they don't get a computer they get a person even after hours correct so anytime you call an earthworm and ask for service you're going to get one of two people myself or my service advisor Curtis um that's going to be pretty much across the board if there's anything else I need to do or I have a guy on the floor that can assist with something better I'll get him on the phone or hit him on FaceTime in the truck we even might have something going on with the same truck even if it's just regular maintenance we'll go out to the truck with FaceTime and say okay let's look at this do you have a dinette do you have a bench seat let's open this try this thing do that kind of thing so we'll do that and you're going to answer us even after hours I have a uh after hours hotline for warranty trucks any truck under warranty until 10 o'clock at night in mountain time okay um they can call and ask any questions I have this issue I have this question what does this button do for that kind of thing or I will assist that way or um they'll set us up for the next morning we'll give them a phone call and get them handled as best we can now um I I have a component on my Earth rumor that goes without my my fridge goes out correct okay how do you handle something like that that's I mean it's an app you know it's it's the fridge might have been it's been customized by Earth Rome correct it has the Earth from a touch but it's not made by earth roamer so do they have to go through the original manufacturer or any part that's installed on our vehicle is an earthwormer part so that part even if it has its own warranty I will handle that warranty myself more than likely I will figure out a way to get you that part yep um I'll get it to the nearest place I can I will get it on a pallet here and then when you come in we'll replace it you don't have to handle bitter frigo or a Dometic warranty I will handle that warranty and get you taken care of because that's an Earth from our warranty minus anything Ford under the hood or powertrain after that it's an earthwormer we're going to take care of it so even if you went to a shop like you have a list I believe of shops that have worked on Earth realm was before so you know that they can do it um you'll take the charge and so the customer just brings it in has it done picks it up and leaves if it's a warranty whether it's a service warranty or a production warranty um we'll get them to a shop if we can't get them here or I can't get someone to them and then we'll take care of the payment and the the stuff on that side of it so the customer just has to deal with dropping the truck off with them and more than likely I'll be the one calling and paying for it and taking care of it that way you know that that's customer service way up and Beyond what we see in the car industry that's our goal um Dan tell us a little bit about how you came to earth roamer what's your background I've been in the automotive industry since I was probably 16. I went to Automotive management uh College okay um and then I got through and I worked for um I've been to Toyota I've been through Cummins diesel trucks and I also worked for Echo Park um so I ran that facility for a while my passion is off-road off-road over Landing that kind of stuff and it's a little Automotive in service so I kind of decided to mix those together I actually had a tab in my computer for about three years of this of earthroamer's careers page and I would refresh it probably every Friday but it was the same across the board as soon as it came up and popped up as a new pop-up yeah I immediately um came through because I'll drive I drove this I-25 probably once a week and just saw it drove past it but as soon as they were available to hire I jumped jumped well you know I know for you I'm sure you feel fortunate that you got the job you've been here I think that they were just as fortunate to get you thank you sir Dan thanks for spending your time thank you very much so Zach you know I from my perspective anyway they have to walk through the factory the design the engineering the testing the quality the craftsmanship and the capability of the vehicle all the what I think is is you know has been your goal uh all along we're not looking for any specific type of customer other than anybody who wants to get way outdoors off-grid and still be comfortable and still be luxurious you know this is meant to be the vehicle that enables all of your favorite activities and passions passions and hobbies so I think it's the perfect marriage between over luxury camping and over Landing I would agree and on that note I want to first of all thank you for taking your time with us but you're gonna hear Zach and I again tomorrow a little bit because we're going off-road tomorrow on the earth Rover I mean if we if we have a truck like this we got to go play with it a little bit we have to go play with it so be sure to check out that link up above and see the earth roamer you want me in the earth thanks for watching [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Two Guys and a Ride

Views: 323,590

Keywords: earthroamer, earthroamer lti, earthroamer sx, earthroamer tour, earthroamer 2022, earthroamer xv-lts, earthroamer hd, 2023 earthroamer sx, earthroamer 2023, earthroamer lti 2023, earthroamer lti interior, earthroamer truck, earthroamer review, earthroamer xvhd, earthroamer xv-lt, earthroamer off road, 2023 earthroamer, earthroamer xv-lts expedition vehicle, earthroamer camper van, earthroamer sx 2023, earthroamer 2020, earthroamer xv hd 2020, earthroamer lts

Id: KVb1hCZ6k-8

Length: 59min 59sec (3599 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2023