With the date to begin production fast approaching, KTH Leesburg Products (KLP) opened its doors to the community this past Saturday, and more than 700 people entered the facility to see what has been causing such excitement in the small town.

Mass production will begin at the facility Monday. The plant originally planned to begin production the first of November, but to be ahead of the main Honda plant in Lincoln and have more time to keep up with inventory, it chose to start up the process a few day early.

For the open house, the administrators of KLP set up a self-guided tour through the Honda parts plant.

Visitors first entered the robot welding area where 85 robot welders appeared to be very busy. They were actually running through their motions with no parts to weld, but it allowed the visitors to witness what the machines are capable of; welding 650 units per day with incredible speed and accuracy. Along the marked-off paths through the plant, displays were set up so visitors could read about what will actually be happening in that section of the facility when mass production begins.

Upon reaching the end of the paths through the robots, another robot was set up in a cage and people crowded around to see what was happening inside. The robot had been reprogrammed to draw Mickey Mouse cartoons. Once complete, the cartoons were passed out to visiting children.

The next section of the tour was a walk beside the two giant presses. The 2,500-ton stamping press and 600-ton blanking press will begin creating Honda Odyssey frames next week.

The enormous stamping press was set up for operation by the open house attendees. Anyone, child or adult, was allowed to press two buttons and make the press cycle.

Before heading out of the factory area, visitors got to see a complete Honda Odyssey minivan, sponsored by Grissom Honda of Gadsden. The complete vehicle is what will be created after the frames are made at KLP and sent to the Lincoln plant where they are turned into a fully functional car.

At the end of the tour, visitors enjoyed refreshments in the cafeteria and some special Japanese exhibits. Sam Kaneda, along with members of his family, created origami toys and decorations for attendees and created a display showing how to do origami (paper folding). KLP President Ted Inokuma let the visitors write their names down and he re-wrote them in Japanese on decorative paper.

Administrative Manager Gene Cleveland was very pleased with the day’s events.

“We had an excellent turnout for our open house Saturday,” said Cleveland. “We owe many thanks to our Associates for taking time our of their weekend to help. We would also like to thank our friends, suppliers and the community for their best wishes, cards and flowers. Finally, we owe the community a special thank you for their support during our start-up and open house.