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Factory/Plant Tours - Where Would You Go?
kingelvis asks: "I have been thinking of putting together a road trip with a theme - Traveling to factories, manufacturing plants, etc all over the country and taking their (free) tours. I've already thought of a few places; Boeing, Auto factories in Detriot, Ben & Jerry's, Jack Daniel's distillery, and so forth. I'm interested in everything from 747s to bottled water, so please respond with any public tour you can think of. Where are some cool places you'd recommend visiting to see how stuff gets made? "
...several of the cool places I visited as a kid are now closed to tours: Kellogg's cereals, various Detroit factories, etc. I remember when Kellogg's closed (in Battle Creek, Michigan), they said it was to prevent corporate espionage. The car factory in my home town (Grand Rapids, Michigan) closed to tours due to liability concerns. But I wish you will in your hunt ;)
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Slow night, eh?
Try Dublin, TX. Check out Dr. Pepper's bottling plant there.
If you're passing by St. Louis, don't miss the free Anheuser-Busch brewery tour. St. Louis is the headquarters and has the oldest, largest brewery, but they have breweries that give tours around the country. For more info check out their website. Best part of going on the tour - free beer at the end.
Postal Sorting Facility!
They're the Post Office's Post Offices, huge super-hubs of mail and machines where mail comes in by the truckload and is divvied up for distribution to area Post Offices. Most large cities have at least one, and it's amazing to see inside. You'll never curse the mail carrier for being late again once you see the sheer volume of parcels being handled inside one of these facilities - it's a wonder the mail works at all, when there's so much of it. Imagine a huge warehouse with conveyor belts 5 or 6 levels deep, shooting mail every which way as it passes through OCR equipment, counting and sorting machines, etc.
I don't know whether or not they still offer public tours (does anyone know if these stopped after the anthrax scare?) but you could always call and ask!
My tour would be to see all of the publically displayed SR-71s.
I would highly recommend a book called "Watch It Made in the U.S.A.". I don't have the latest edition, but the previous edition has a lot of great detailed information (cost, freebies given, hours, nearby attractions, etc) for all kinds of tours.
Also, the Travel Channel's website has a list of the Best Factory Tours for Kids in the U.S. in case you want to act like a kid.
General Electric's Appliance Park
Louisville Slugger bat factory/museum
Ford truck assembly plant
National Corvette Museum/assembly plant (in nearby Bowling Green)
Howard Steamboat Museum/JeffBoat(U.S. largest inland shipbuilder)
Zimmerman Art Glass factory(Corydon, IN - 30min drive)
Falls City Ironworks
...and enough Kentucky bourbon distilleries to make a man giddy. Other than those, I can't think of any production facilities that encourage public tours. The McAlpine Locks & Dam (not sure if the power plant is open for tours) is a pretty interesting site, even if it isn't a factory.
Any power plant. I'm not sure how much you'd see on a tour, but there's some neat tech in these. (My dad works at one so I've seen everything there is...) It's mostly 'low' tech, other than things like control systems. But the scale and the amount of power going through is neat.
NORAD in Colorado Springs, CO or Offutt AFB in Omaha, NE. Norad has some neato tech, and the 'building' is way cool. Offutt AFB has a bit more modern tech (I used to work there, maybe I'm biased), but is basicly the same thing. Both are very high security, so call in advance (at least a couple weeks, maybe a month) so they can do a background check. But it's worth it to see the coolest vax clusters on the planet. (You won't get to actually see them, just the output, but it's still cool. Again, maybe I'm biased, they were my babies for several years) The SAC museum is in Omaha too if you like bombers and stuff.
Any type of steel or metalurgical plant. Those places boggle my mind. (usually located near power plants for cheap electric, at least around my home town)
Chemical plants. Not sure what the security is like near these but it's neet to see how stuff is all heated and mixed together to produce whatever it is they're making. I've been to chevron, dow, and dupont plants (all near my home town also - they call the mid ohio valley, 'chemical valley' for a reason). I'm suprised I don't have an extra limb or something.
Maybe I'm a geek, but I'd like to see some microchips getting made and some surface mount boards getting assembled.
Anyplace that uses robotics is cool. My uncle gave me a tour of the biotech company he built the robots for. If you can get the tour guide or the geeky looking guy standing around at the factory to explain some of details of the tech, do it. I had no idea how far robots had come.
Think about something a little more old fashoned. A hand made wood working shop, a metal shop. Then work your way up to more modern things like windows, and lumber mills.
Get your Laverne and Shirley on at a brewery. Hit someplace that makes snack food or candy. From watching shows on food tv I've noticed they seem alot like chemical plants...
Hmm I'm hungry now. Have a good trip tho.