As students across the United States and Canada head back to school this fall, if they are in a school bus — there is a 41% chance that the bus was made in Tulsa.
Just southeast of Tulsa International Airport, the Tulsa IC Bus Plant has operated for more than 25 years from a 1 million-square-foot manufacturing floor originally constructed to make bombers during World War II. Last fall, the facility celebrated completing 250,000 buses since starting operations in 2001.
Each day, roughly 1,500 employees at the IC Bus Plant produce around 65 school buses — a combination of diesel, gasoline and electric models. The roughly three-day process begins with coils of metal that go through different stampings and presses before they are glued, riveted and welded together to form the floor, side sheets, topping and roof of each bus — which are then combined and sent down a pre-finish line to receive windows, roof hatches and various coats of paint to become the bus’s body.
Simultaneously, the chassis is assembled from a blank set of frame rails, with workers adding axles and propeller shafts as the structure continues down the line before receiving its engine and instrument panel. After proceeding through four quality gates, the chassis is ready to be matched with its corresponding body — which is hoisted from the ceiling of the 56-foot-tall warehouse and dropped onto the awaiting framework…