The Re-Birth of the Gold Wing: Honda's Brobdingnagian Tourer gets a Clean Sheet Re-Design - Brief Article

Automotive Manufacturing & Production, Feb, 2001 by Kermit Whitfield

The massive Honda Gold Wing motorcycle has more parts than a Honda Civic automobile, so the same attention that Honda designers, engineers, and production personnel pay to efficiencies in car-building has been paid to this two-wheeler.

Why? Why is there a picture of a motorcycle on the cover of Automotive Manufacturing & Production? Are there so few new and interesting cars out there that we had to shop around for other kinds of vehicles to display prominently on our cover? Have we forgotten that the mission of AM&P is primarily to cover the ongoing revolution in the industry that builds four-wheeled vehicles? Have we simply taken leave of our senses? The answers are: no, no and er... let's not go there.

There are many reasons why there is a motorcycle on our cover. First, it is a motorcycle that is equal to many cars in its manufacturing complexity. Second, it is designed and built by one of the most innovative car companies in the world. Third, the manufacturing concepts being used to build the Honda Gold Wing can and are being used in auto manufacturing. And fourth, we thought it would be really cool to have a motorcycle on the cover.

A Little History, Please

From the beginning of its life in 1975, the Gold Wing was designed to be something special. Powered by an innovative 999-cc liquid-cooled horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine, it was unlike anything else on the road at the time. Americans yearning for the open road and the wind in their hair bought 'em up. In fact, so many Americans bought the Gold Wing that by 1979 80% of all its production was being sold in North America. So, following its philosophy of building products where they are sold, Honda decided to build a plant in the United States to produce motorcycles.

The Marysville Motorcycle Plant (MMP) began production of a simple dirt bike in September 1979. But within a year, the associates at the Marysville, Ohio, facility had moved up to assembling the top-of-the-line Gold Wing. MMP became and remains the exclusive producer of the Gold Wing.

Over the years, Honda kept its finger on the pulse of its customer base and changed the Gold Wing accordingly. People were using the machines mainly for long-distance touring, so it was optimized for that purpose. Aerodynamic fairings, saddlebags and a trunk became standard equipment. The wheelbase was lengthened to provide more room for the pilot and the passenger, the engine was tuned to favor torque over horsepower, and the bike got bigger and bigger. The just-introduced Gold Wing is no exception to this expansion.

With a new 1832-cc six-cylinder engine, room for two amply proportioned riders, and a dry weight of 799 lb., the all-new Gold Wing has become the 800-pound gorilla that can do whatever it wants.

Tabula Rasa

The design work for the new Gold Wing began in early 1996 in Japan. But for three years prior to that, the program manager, or, in Honda-speak, the Large Project Leader (LPL), Masanori Aoki, lived in the U.S., attended motorcycle rallies, and spent long hours in the saddle of a Gold Wing. Those experiences combined with customer interviews and information from 23,000 owner surveys gave the Gold Wing design team the basis they needed for a clean-sheet redesign of their touring icon.

The bottom line from all of the research was that customers wanted more performance and agility. To achieve its customers' desires, the team focused on making a lighter, more rigid body and a more powerful engine.

While the Gold Wing design team was pondering how to make a better bike, Honda's manufacturing gurus were trying to figure out how to make a more efficient plant. In the end, they both achieved their goals.

MMP Unbound

One of the challenges that Honda faced as it reviewed its manufacturing facilities around the world, was how to configure each plant for the flexibility necessary to meet the ever-changing demands of its customers. That is, how do you make products as complex as the Gold Wing, which has as many parts as a Civic automobile, on the same line as a much simpler motorcycle without losing efficiency?

The answer was a redesign of the main assembly line so as to keep the process flow among different models as common as possible. Differences in assembly time, which can be quite significant, are handled by off-line subassembly areas and modularization.

In the past, the process cycle time for the Gold Wing was so much longer than anything else that MMP made that two simpler motorcycles would come down the line between each Gold Wing to give the assembly associates a chance to catch up. Now, because of the off line subassembly of major component modules including the fairing, the trunk and saddlebags, and the front and rear suspensions and wheels, Gold Wings run down the line in lots of 20 each. When another model motorcycle is being built, associates have time to do their process on that bike plus complete subassembly work for the next 20 Gold Wings.

Synchronicity

Another major theme that Honda is pursuing is the synchronous production of vehicles and engines in the same facilities. MMP is the first Honda plant to institute this theme in North America. (Honda's newest auto plant, which is currently under construction in Alabama, will also feature the synchronous production of vehicles and engines.)