Our Facilities

The Home of Hard Work and Innovation.

At Winnebago Industries, items such as motor home ladders, windows, holding tanks, bumpers and galley cabinets are literally "built from scratch" in our own facility.

We start with raw materials such as billets of aluminum, bulk dimension lumber and pellets or sheets of plastic and end with finished products.

Winnebago Industries operates what is clearly the largest and most sophisticated RV production facility in the world.

Producing so much ourselves results in many benefits for owners of Winnebago and Itasca motor homes.

First of all, there is QUALITY. Since so much of each motor home is made by Winnebago Industries in the heartland of the U.S.A., we can easily set and maintain the strictest quality controls possible.

Also, doing it ourselves allows us to design to motor home needs and not use some off-the-shelf item designed for another use. Making it ourselves also gives faster turnaround on improvements and new designs.

And, there’s the advantage of availability of REPLACEMENT PARTS. Dies and molds are kept on hand. So, if you need a holding tank 10 years from now, you can get one. The tank was made by us, not by someone else who has long since gone out of business or shifted production.

The Winnebago Industries main production facility covers about 200 acres, not counting parking areas near the main complex. The 20-plus buildings on the site have a total of approximately 60 acres (2 million square feet) under roof.

There are also satellite manufacturing facilities at Hampton, Iowa and Charles City, Iowa. These facilities add another 500,000 square feet (approximately) of manufacturing space. Total Winnebago Industries employment in RV operations is approximately 3,300.

There are several major divisions within Winnebago Industries, each producing a specific series of items for our motor homes. The Winnebago Industries production family includes:

CAPCO: Creative Aluminum Products Company (CAPCO) first converts billets of superheated aluminum into extrusions using two huge presses. Then these extrusions are used to make windows, ladders, screen doors and other items.

Rotocast: This facility contains large rotational molding machines used to produce items such as holding tanks, water tanks, luggage compartments, heat ducts and wheel wells.

Plastics: This facility processes more than 2.3 million pounds of raw materials a year. Sheets of plastic are heated and vacuum formed. Motor home components manufactured here include shower stalls, dashboards, even tail light housings.

Stitchcraft: The Stitchcraft division is responsible for providing soft goods for Winnebago Industries motor homes. These include chairs, sofas, cushions, draperies, shades, foam mattresses, bedspreads, carpets and trim panels.

Sawmill/Cabinet Shop: This facility is responsible for supplying all wood components, including doors, cabinets, laminated panels and counter tops.

Metal Stamping: This facility is responsible for supplying steel components which are used throughout Winnebago Industries motor homes. This includes structural steel and sheet metal parts. In recent years, Metal Stamping has been processing more than 13,500 tons of steel a year.

Fiberglass: When operating at peak capacity, the facility generates more than 1,000 fiberglass components for motor homes each week. Front grilles, roof caps, wheel well trim pieces and many other items are manufactured here.

Warehousing: There are 14 truck docks for receiving and shipping materials at the largest building on the Forest City plant site. The Ware-house staff routinely handles 25 truckloads of material a day.

Chassis Prep: Winnebago Industries is well known for its steel surround cab structure which gives our motor homes a greatly increased safety factor. In this building, cab assemblies are manufactured and are processed through a 12-stage full immersion electrodeposition coating system. Chassis are modified and the cabs are then attached using the latest in laser alignment technology.

Motor Home Production: This is where the final assembly of motor homes takes place. It contains three moving assembly lines, each approximately 900 feet long. Motor homes are assembled simultaneously on each of the lines.
The electrical system, LP system, holding tanks and water system are fully tested on each unit.

Every unit also goes through a severe water test. Each coach gets five minutes of concentrated water spray from 160 spray heads that deliver water at a rainfall rate of 50 inches per hour.

Shipout: Before a motor home is shipped, a Pre-Delivery Audit (PDA) is conducted at Shipout. A total functional test of each system is performed and there’s a final inspection.

All of this adds up to more motor home for you, the motor home customer. And, after all, aren’t quality and value what you want?