Front End Bus Mock-Up

While working at Gillig, I had the opportunity to work on a project that would assist the window defroster vendor in solving a problem we were having . With the current front end bus design, the defroster system was having trouble reaching all the crucial parts of the window. The goal for me was to create a full sized working model of the front of the bus with all the crucial operating elements so that the vendor could perform any fine tuning and testing that they needed

The first part of this project was generate a 3D CAD model of all the elements and parts that we needed for this project. This turned out to be a combination of finding key parts for operation and designing custom pieces specific to the mock-up. This design also needed to costed and designed so that only the key parts were included to keep cost low.

After completing the design, the next task was to work with the purchasing department in determining which parts we had in stock that I could pull and what parts we had to order. I also went down to the fabrication department to have the custom roof rails and side walls cut to specified lengths. The timing all the lead times was crucial because once it came to assemble, I would need to pull regular production line workers off the line.

During the assembly process, I worked alongside the production line workers, directing them in the building of the custom parts and assemblies that were specific to this project.

After the build was finished, I designed a cradle system to transport the full sized model, and arranged for it to be put on the back end of a truck and shipped up to the vendor in Canada.

After receiving the model, the vendor was able to run all the test and R&D that they needed to. This resulted in a modified air flow design for our bus front end, and a successful project build.

Additional Images from the build.