Assembly Line

The first all-electric Coda sedan rolled off the assembly line in Benicia, Calif., on Monday, marking a big day for the privately held Los Angeles company. Coda Automotive Inc. manufactures most of the vehicle's battery system and body in China. The parts are then shipped to the San Francisco Bay Area port city of Benicia for final assembly. "Coda started five years ago in an airport hangar in Southern California," said Mac Heller, the company's executive chairman. "We shared a conviction that with technology and science, we could create cars that do not spoil the Earth, drain the treasury or hurt the health of our children.

There have been 10 All-City catchers produced by Granada Hills Kennedy since the high school opened in 1971, raising the question of whether there is some kind of electromagnetic field transforming its catchers into Ninja-like figures. "No, it's the luck of the draw," Kennedy Coach Manny Alvarado said. From past major leaguers Darryl Cias and Phil Lombardi to high school standouts Jeff Johnson, David Bourne, David Lusk, Kevin Serr, Phil Avlas, John Kane, Michael Sanchez and Branden Soto, the catcher position at Kennedy is reserved for high achievers.

Assembly of Boeing Co.'s C-17 cargo planes resumed in Long Beach on Thursday after a majority of the 1,700 workers who had walked off their jobs agreed to a new labor contract, ending a nearly monthlong strike at Southern California's last remaining major airplane factory. The United Auto Workers Local 148 said more than 60% of the striking workers voted to ratify the five-year contract that the union and the Chicago-based aerospace company had reached last week. Although there will be no pay raise this year, workers will get a $4,000 lump sum payout and a 3% annual raise over the remaining years of the contract.

Pininfarina designs Ferraris. Pininfarina designs Maseratis. But on a sleepy Wednesday afternoon in Westwood, the Pininfarina design that is attracting attention is a soda dispenser in the new pizzeria 800 Degrees. Teenagers approach the sleek, glistening slab like apes drawn to the monolith at the beginning of"2001: A Space Odyssey. " This machine, one of the first in the Los Angeles area, dispenses 300 different soft drinks from its maw, all variants on the basic Coca-Cola product line but with every permutation of those you could imagine.

In time's assembly line Night presses against night. We come off the factory night-shift In line as we march towards home. Over our heads in a row The assembly line of stars Stretches across the sky. Beside us, little trees Stand numb in assembly lines. The stars must be exhausted After thousands of years Of journeys which never change. The little trees are all sick, Choked on smog and monotony, Stripped of their color and shape.

A Los Angeles woman who died after an abortion at Inglewood Women's Hospital in 1987 was the victim of "an abortion assembly line," in which a single doctor performed 74 of the operations in one day, the lawyer for her family argued Friday in Norwalk Superior Court.

The Oldsmobile, the line that began in 1897 and featured models such as the Rocket 88 and the muscular 442, is coming to an end this week. The last Olds, an Alero, is due to roll off an assembly line Thursday in Lansing, Mich., the same city where the brand was born. General Motors Corp. had announced in December 2000 that it would discontinue the Oldsmobile, the oldest automotive brand name in U.S. history.

An era ended at the Navistar International truck plant in Springfield, Ohio, when the last International Harvester truck rolled off the assembly line, to be replaced by vehicles with the new Navistar double-diamond logo. Chicago-based International Harvester changed its name Feb. 20 after selling its farm equipment business to Tenneco Inc. of Houston.

Masami Ishihara, the man in charge of building what is arguably the hottest car in the Western world, is about to beat a headache that has been bugging him for months. The kind of headache that his counterparts in Detroit would dearly love to have. For here in Hiroshima, Ishihara is the boss of Assembly Line No.

HARTSVILLE, S.C. -- He's built water heaters and installed anodes for $9.15 an hour. He's got a swing -- and a Southern drawl -- that had European competitors on The Golf Channel's "Big Break IV" chuckling. And he's ready for somebody, perhaps even himself, to stand up to Tiger Woods' dominance. PGA Tour, get ready for Tommy Gainey. "I'm just a good ol' Southern boy, country as it gets," Gainey said. "I earned everything I've gotten." The 32-year-old Gainey's down-home, straightforward approach has earned him the admiration of viewers from two "Big Break" appearances and, after seven tries, a PGA Tour card.

The first all-electric Coda sedan rolled off the assembly line in Benicia, Calif., on Monday, marking a big day for the privately held Los Angeles company. Coda Automotive Inc. manufactures most of the vehicle's battery system and body in China. The parts are then shipped to the San Francisco Bay Area port city of Benicia for final assembly. "Coda started five years ago in an airport hangar in Southern California," said Mac Heller, the company's executive chairman. "We shared a conviction that with technology and science, we could create cars that do not spoil the Earth, drain the treasury or hurt the health of our children.

The men and women — especially the women — who helped win World War II were remembered Saturday with a wreath-laying next to where wartime B-17 bombers and fighter planes were built. The commemoration took place at Rosie the Riveter Park, an unusual three-acre interpretive center in Long Beach that honors women who worked at the Douglas Aircraft Co. plant and in other defense industries during the early 1940s. Finishing touches were made last month on the $200,000 installation at the corner of Clark Avenue and Conant Street.

It's not easy to get a mental picture of the world's largest building. But tour guides at Boeing Co.'s aircraft assembly plant in Everett do their best by using some mind-blowing imagery. At 98 acres, its footprint is as big as 75 football fields - which makes it larger than Disneyland. But there are no whirling teacups here. The massive hangar, which rises 11 stories, is where Boeing builds its wide-body jets, including the new 787 Dreamliner. Airlines are expected to begin taking delivery of the new planes later this year.

The town that produces some of the world's most expensive and luxurious sports cars is a staid hamlet with weedy, trash-littered stretches. Every workday, Porsche assembly line worker Anton Deutschitsch drives his Hyundai past its casinos and Lotto stores, catering to those a little less skilled or lucky. He's grateful that he's kept his job of 32 years, helping put together nimble Boxsters or sleek Carreras, but knows he could end up among the less fortunate at any time.

Assembly of Boeing Co.'s C-17 cargo planes resumed in Long Beach on Thursday after a majority of the 1,700 workers who had walked off their jobs agreed to a new labor contract, ending a nearly monthlong strike at Southern California's last remaining major airplane factory. The United Auto Workers Local 148 said more than 60% of the striking workers voted to ratify the five-year contract that the union and the Chicago-based aerospace company had reached last week. Although there will be no pay raise this year, workers will get a $4,000 lump sum payout and a 3% annual raise over the remaining years of the contract.

With slowing orders, Boeing Co. said Tuesday that it planned to cut by a third the production rate of its C-17 military cargo airplanes at its plant in Long Beach. The move is likely to entail layoffs, but the Chicago company said it did not know exactly how many jobs would be lost. The plant employs about 5,000 people. Boeing said the plant could stay open longer by reducing production to 10 aircraft a year from 15. "This move allows us to reduce the annual production rate and lay the foundation to extend the line beyond 2012 with new and existing orders," Boeing spokesman Jerry Drelling said.

With each F-18 jet fuselage that Northrop turns out, it creates 16,295 pages of manufacturing paper work. Since the F-18 program began, it has generated enough paper to equal the height of the Empire State Building. Such monumental amounts of paper work have become a hallmark of the defense procurement system, which appears to thrive on complex and often arcane rules that require legions of workers to implement and document.

Seventy-five years ago today, in Henry Ford's "Crystal Palace," his Model T factory in Highland Park, Mich., the moving assembly line was born. On Oct. 7, 1913, the industrial world was changed forever. It was, in many ways, the dawn of a second industrial revolution, the start of a dramatic shift from an era of small-scale manufacturing to one dominated by the mass production of inexpensive consumer goods for America's emerging middle class.

Tom Smallwood, the best sports story of 2009, is on the phone from Las Vegas talking about whom he'd prefer to portray him in the movie. He hasn't given it much thought, though he has met with agents and producers and says Kevin James' ("Paul Blart: Mall Cop") name has come up. James' comic Everyman persona fits nicely with Smallwood's incredible one-year scramble from unemployed auto worker to world champion bowler. Then again, considering Smallwood is 5 feet 6, good humored and tends to lead with his teeth, don't discount the Ricky Gervais option.

It was the kind of plane that seemed to fit the swinging go-go days with martini-swigging travelers lingering around a bar. First-class passengers dressed in their Sunday best made their way up a spiral staircase to get to the "flying penthouse," harking memories of private rail cars. It seemed the epitome of plushness when it made its first commercial flight 40 years ago today. A Times reporter described the cabin as a "luxurious auditorium some genie had wafted aloft." Boeing Co.'s 747 was not only the biggest plane that anyone had ever seen before -- it was nearly three times larger than the largest jet flying at the time -- it transformed travel in a way that few have.