With quality and the customer at the center of everything they do, the team at Grand Design RV understands that details matter. Every step of the process is marked by meticulous attention to detail and rigorous inspection from experienced craftspeople - like John Ruiz, the brand’s director of lamination.
After starting in lamination at a small RV company and spending 17 years at another industrial firm, John was personally invited by Grand Design President Don Clark to join the team nearly 13 years ago. Today, he leads a team in laminate construction of most Grand Design RVs, including travel trailers, fifth wheels, toy haulers and their latest innovation, the Lineage Series motorhome line.
Layering durability and reliability into the design
Lamination is the process of layering and bonding materials to create the walls, and sometimes the floors and roofs of an RV. Grand Design RVs start with an aluminum skeleton, adding block foam insulation and fiberglass to create an outer layer, and fiberboard on the interior for an aesthetically pleasing finish. This multi-layered structure is lightweight while giving Grand Design RVs their strength and durability – critical factors for a brand built on reliability and customer satisfaction.
Thanks to John’s expertise in lamination, industry experience and congenial leadership, his team has made significant contributions that have helped the brand grow significantly over the past decade. When John started at GDRV as a plant manager, he walked into a 60,000-square-foot plant that was constructing around 11 RVs a day. Through hard work and innovation, he and his team increased production by adding equipment, space and staff. Today, they’ve been known to laminate upwards of 230 units a day in a 213,000-square-foot plant.
A new challenge
For John, quality is even more important than the number of RVs manufactured. For example, when GDRV added the Lineage Series to its portfolio a year ago, John and his team faced a new challenge requiring the team’s utmost attention to detail.
“Building on a chassis from Europe, we had to match a new set of metric tolerances,” said John. (“Tolerances” are the acceptable range of variation in a product's dimensions that ensure smooth operation and performance.)
“That raised the bar for us,” he said. “All our windows are framed in 100% aluminum, and in order to work properly in the Schwintek slide, the allowable tolerance was only +/-1/16”. We stepped up to the challenge. We adapted. We learned so much that we’re now integrating that level of precision into everything. It’s a good feeling to know that we can hold our tolerances so tight, making it work well for our customers with fewer warranty claims. At the end of the day, that makes me happy, knowing we are building the best quality unit for our customers.”
Beyond delivering the highest quality products, it’s the people that make showing up to work every day exciting. John says people are at the heart of everything he does, from the customers that purchase Grand Design RVs, to his co-workers for whom he is known to host pizza parties and BBQs, to his beloved family, which includes 13 grandchildren.
“What we learn at work,” he said, “we can take home and teach to the next generation: do the right thing when no one's looking and you will be rewarded for it.”