[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by 68pongto

nobody really has been able to decipher any of the internal seq. numbers.

The internal sequence numbers are simply that: internal sequence numbers. They really have no significance once the vehicle is released into the wild.

Assembly plants assign sequence numbers in the body (weld) shop, and again in the trim shop. The final line sequence number (the "General Assembly", or GA sequence number) becomes the gold source once established.

Most plants have the ability to re-shuffle the build order at the end of each of those locations, by having a body bank, or buffer. Builds can be shuffled at the end of body shop to allow for extended repairs; builds can be shuffled at the end of trim for repairs or to level the workload in the downstream operations (ie, can't have too many AC cars in a row; can't have too many manual trans cars in a row; can't have too many tripower cars in a row).

Fremont did not have that ability and was one of the few plants that built "straight through". As a result they were able to broadcast the body shop sequence number and have it maintain its significance through the entire build process.

K