Take A Look Inside TMI Products!
Solomon Lunger of Ford Era stopped by a while ago to see exactly how the interiors for his Ford trucks were being made and learned a few things along the way. Give the video a watch and see what it’s like inside TMI Products!
Automation in factories has forever changed the face of the planet. One segment of manufacturing that doesn’t have a lot of automation is upholstery. One thing most visitors are surprised about with TMI Products is we have an entire team of top-notch sewers who are physically sewing each and every seat cover or door panel we make.
The first step in the manufacturing process is the cutting of raw materials. In the old days this would have been done by chalking up a pattern on a piece of material and cutting with a big pair of razor sharp scissors. Automation has come into effect here a bit where we have three different cutting machines. These machines are loaded with a pattern then an automated knife cuts the patterns to within fractions of an inch of precision.
All of our seat frames are also made in-house. We have full time fabricators and welders who cut, bend, grind, and weld up each and every frame right here at TMI Products. A machine shop next to welding is where all the jigs are produced for the utmost precision time and time again.
Another aspect with TMI is that we make our own molds for vacuum forming certain door panels and pieces, and we make our own molds for our foam production. The molds for fiberglass are also made in house to whatever specifications we need to make the best products possible.
Our selection of raw materials tops over 600 different colors, patterns, grains, or styles. If you have a vision for a certain seat in a certain color, we can make that happen.
While automation has certainly helped make TMI faster and more accurate, the art of building an interior still requires lots of physical labor. From gluing material to door panels or fine tuning the foam, everything is done by hand.
In this video you can watch materials go from raw goods to a finished seat sitting on the shelf waiting for you to pick it up for your ride.
We’d like to thank Solomon for swinging by and checking out how things are made here at TMI. Give The Ford Era a follow to see him put some TMI Products interiors to use!
