I have a theory explaining the seemingly out of sequence VIN for the cars at the end of production line. It is purely speculative, as I have no information to support or disprove this theory.
The current order handling procedure includes confirming the order and the options two weeks after the order is placed. At this time order is "released" to the factory. It does not mean that the car gets into the manufacturing right away, just means that factory personnel gets paperwork and includes this order into the production planning. I believe that this would be the most logical point at which VIN is assigned. This means that looking at the factory release date in conjunction with the corresponding VIN can give a very accurate data on the current rate of reservation.
From this point on, however, nice sequential flow of VIN numbers gets interrupted because as part of the production planning factroy needs to form batches of similar cars in order to minimize re-programming and even possibly minor re-tooling of the production "line". At this point cars which are ordered not as often as most popular configuration (say P85+) need to be groupped together to form a batch big enough to minimize re-programming of the line, but not to big as to excessively increase time between the order and delivery. At this point cars with VINs that are much higher that VINs that are currently entering the production can be pulled up in the sequence. This is the process that need to be performed with every configuration that need to form a separate batch, and leads to the phenomenon of seemingly out of order VINs exiting production line.
One of the conclusions would be that in order to accurately predict the production rate it is necessary to ignore potentially much higher VINs for the less commonly configured cars. The VINs for the cars with the most common configuration (presumably 85 with air suspension) would be less likely to be out of sequence, and, therfore will most accurately indicate the production rate.
What do you think? Does this theory seem plausible, or there are competing explanations for the out of sequence VINs?
The current order handling procedure includes confirming the order and the options two weeks after the order is placed. At this time order is "released" to the factory. It does not mean that the car gets into the manufacturing right away, just means that factory personnel gets paperwork and includes this order into the production planning. I believe that this would be the most logical point at which VIN is assigned. This means that looking at the factory release date in conjunction with the corresponding VIN can give a very accurate data on the current rate of reservation.
From this point on, however, nice sequential flow of VIN numbers gets interrupted because as part of the production planning factroy needs to form batches of similar cars in order to minimize re-programming and even possibly minor re-tooling of the production "line". At this point cars which are ordered not as often as most popular configuration (say P85+) need to be groupped together to form a batch big enough to minimize re-programming of the line, but not to big as to excessively increase time between the order and delivery. At this point cars with VINs that are much higher that VINs that are currently entering the production can be pulled up in the sequence. This is the process that need to be performed with every configuration that need to form a separate batch, and leads to the phenomenon of seemingly out of order VINs exiting production line.
One of the conclusions would be that in order to accurately predict the production rate it is necessary to ignore potentially much higher VINs for the less commonly configured cars. The VINs for the cars with the most common configuration (presumably 85 with air suspension) would be less likely to be out of sequence, and, therfore will most accurately indicate the production rate.
What do you think? Does this theory seem plausible, or there are competing explanations for the out of sequence VINs?
