I woke up this morning with the head of my girlfriend’s dog (I called it the rat dog, it was so small), pinned to the pillow beside my head with a note. Remember last summer, Mofo, the Saxon ride to the desert. You need to write an article about they’re factory or die trying. Oh, what’s with your ol’ lady’s dog? Didn’t put up much of a fight.—X
It took me months to get over the peyote buttons the girls at Rocky Point slipped into my cheap tequila shots. I thought for sure they wanted desperately for me to forget that weekend. I didn’t know whether to pack my shit and run or celebrate the death of that fuckin’ rat she called a dog.
It started to come back to me. It reminded me of a dusty berg on the outskirts of Vegas, in the desert, where you take people to bury them in shallow graves. I remember looking around and wondering, at the time, if that was my fate. The decrepit town was filtering back into my memory. I remembered one Spanish mission, a faded Foster’s Freeze and a bar. Then on the outskirts of town we came across a residential area that reminded me of something out of one of those dust bowl, depression era movies. No pavement streets, straddled with tents and plywood shanties, thin emasculated women wore tattered, faded threads carrying buckets of water from one stone well.
Just beyond the nasty smell of open privies stood the massive block encased Saxon Assembly Plant, except it looked like a federal prison facility surrounded by hot wired 15-foot chain-link fencing laced with barbed wire and topped with rolls of jagged concentration camp concertina wire.
I tried to remember whether there were armed guard posts at the corners? I think the peyote kicked in as we pulled up to the gates and David Schwam, the Marketing director jumped out of the jet black, Saxon Humvee, screaming at starving, sullen women begging at the gates. From nowhere he snatched a leather riding crop and began to lash at them in a madman’s rage. “Get these bitches away from the gates,” He snarled whipping their frail sun burnt backs. “I told the manager we were bringing the press.”
I attempted not to stare. The women weren’t pleading for food, although they needed it bad. They were begging for the return of their men. I didn’t get it. They looked as though they had taken up housekeeping outside the vast iron gates. Our entourage crept past the weeping damsels into the guarded Saxon Fortress.
I half expected to find a line of small Chinese men lashed together with chains, building Saxon motorcycles. Was it the Peyote or the strange smoke I had with breakfast that was making me paranoid and vividly imaginary. The Saxon partners immediately led us into a lavish conference room and disappeared. I had the munchies and dove into the donut buffet, steaming java and juices. The smoke induced paranoia that seemed prevalent among this array of motojournalists seemed to suddenly diminish and I noticed a giggling banter pick-up between the editors and writers. I looked at the sugarcoated donuts and wondered, then I noticed a mist filtering from the air-conditioning vents. Suddenly I was laughing with the rest of them and life seemed immersed in joy. The Saxon team returned to give us a full tour of their new facility.
The Saxon partners bought the 65,000 square foot building and rebuilt every element from the wiring to the office interiors, roofing and insulation to avoid the strident Arizona desert temps. I suddenly felt comfortable and lucid as if I had snorted brain Drano laced with Valium. I couldn’t find the Chinese laundry with forced labor. The facility was clean and open as if a bunch of partners working together to build bikes in ideal surroundings. Even the offices were open with windows facing the small assembly line in the middle of the vast concrete industrial building. It was as if the master builders worked and could signal to the plant manager, or the supply clerk for help, questions or ordering concerns.
Saxon kicked off their bike building process, a year ago, with two man teams in cells building bikes. Each team built a bike from start to finish and they produced eight bikes a week. Saxon bikes began to sell and the crew sensed a need for elevated numbers. The Saxon partners hired John Bishopp, with a vast 17-year background in the auto industry. John grew up in engineering, program management, to become a product line director and ultimately the director of operations for an automotive plant.
I got the impression he was imprisoned aboard a container ship and forced into the Table Top Wilderness to build motorcycles. I shook my head and snorted another line of powder off my donut. I’ve been to the Harley-Davidson factory. I’ve seen automobile assembly operations and this was a miniature by comparison, but it was cool, like a close family operation or Santa’s Elves making toys. That’s a tough one to swallow, but imagine if you had to set up a system to build all your brothers tight, fast choppers. Imagine the perfect scenario—that’s the Saxon Plant.
“We started the assembly line with the bike building tables,” John said. “We added wheels and a small track and we were underway.”
The track, tables and tools are arranged in the center of this industrial building and surround by sub-departments that work to feed the line complete assemblies and components to make the line assembly operation as efficient and assembly-friendly as possible. It’s the same crew who started in the Saxon build teams.
The Saxon warriors now produce 16 bikes a week and each custom motorcycle is road tested for 30 miles and quality inspected and tuned afterwards.
“Our assembly line is based on the Kaizen, Japanese philosophy,” John said. “It’s a thought process that revolves around continuous improvement and sequential assembly.” Stage one involved adding the power train to the frame that’s partially assembled in a sub-assembly area. Station II adds forks, wheels, pulleys and belts. Station or stage III is all about electrical. Stage IV includes all sheet metal and adding fluids to the finished motorcycle.
The Sub Stations surrounding the line included wheels sets, mounting tires, rotors, and pulleys. Handlebars are pre-wired, controls and gauges added and cables matched so they go right onto the forks on the assembly line during stage III. The frames are pre-prepped as mentioned before, with neck bearings, swingarms, motor mounts and exhaust mounts. The engines are brought to the line with carbs in place, ignition set and tuned and prepped for final assembly.
That’s the basics, but keeping the ball rolling involves all aspects of the team working together. “Getting and keeping the parts flowing is a constant hurtle,” John said. “We give our suppliers a six month forecast to keep them appraised of our building needs. We back that with six to eight week purchase orders. This is especially important for frame, and sheet metal manufacturers. We work predominately with Phoenix and Southern California suppliers, so shipping obstacles are minimized.”
Eight men run the assembly line and everyday they look for quality and assembly improvements. Since the purchasing and support staff is only a few feet away, the reaction time to make corrections was cut significantly. Every element involved in building Saxon motorcycles is checked daily. Oil bags were tough to install and a line mechanic made a suggestion that was implemented immediately and improve the assembly process. Another item caused the team to scratch the frame during assembly. A special guard tool was designed to prevent the damage and added to the line in a day. If a product error was discovered, purchasing passed the word immediately to the vendor to prevent the problem at the manufacturing level. “The production manager, Jack Frye, spends 95 percent of his time on the floor, working with the assembly team,” John said.
This Saxon plant will build 760 Saxon motorcycles this year and projects to construct 1,100 in 2007. Suddenly I felt rats running up my legs and I freaked. I could swear I saw little Chinese guys in chains crying out for their women at the gates. A couple of guys grabbed me and pushed me toward the Gard Hollinger designed Saxon Black Crown. I straddled it as paranoia raged up my spine. I cut a dusty trail toward the Mexican border.
I’m still wondering where I ended up. A sandy beach over looking the Las Palmas resort, or was it a lap dance is a dusty bar in a small coastal town surrounded by Federales lifting our gear from that Humvee? I still don’t know what really happened.
