I have always been interested in how things are made, and the Discovery channel show How It’s Made has built that interest even more. I want to go actually see things made! My Google-Fu is weak though. I can’t find any factory tours or reference sites that would point me to them.
Does anyone know of a directory of factory tours? I’m in the Hudson Valley of New York, but if a tour is cool enough, I’d travel to it, so factory tours anywhere in the US are fair game.
The Boeing plant in Everett, Washington is open for tours. You can see 747’s, 777’s, 767’s and the new 787 going together. Well, at this time you will see airplane not being built. Not till the Machinist’s strike is over.
I’ve checked out this site a few times. Heard really good things about the Jelly Belly factory tour.
The Rouge Factory Tour at “The Henry Ford” in Dearborn, Michigan, will take you through a real, live pickup truck assembly plant. They don’t take you into the body shop, though, where the real fun is. 
There’s a shocking omission on that site. The Chelsea Milling Company (better known as the Jiffy Mix people) located in Chelsea, MI offers Factory Tours.
If the factory is of any size (more than a couple dozen people working there) more likely than not they offer a tour. It may not be a daily thing, but one phone call making an appointment will be all it takes.
A few years ago I had the opportunity to tour the Schneider Equipment factory in Syracuse. They make a lot of the automated machinery shown on How It’s Made. A lot of robotics and stuff. Really cool place to check out if you have the chance.
I recall seeing a book about factory tours once. I want to say it’s called “Made in America.”
That site looks great! All of the other recommendations sound good too, especially the factory in Syracuse.
As a suggestion, it might be easier to arrange a tour with a group, like scouts or something. Get involved with a scout troop and just start calling up factories and places that look interesting. Sure, you might have to share your experience with a dozen or so 10 year old boys who are more interested in Pokemon cards and fart/booger jokes than where ever you are going, but it gets you in the door.
First if you think of a place you’d like to visit contact them. Where I worked last they would show interested people the plant if the plant didn’t have a dead line or clients visiting. A couple people might get an instant tour, which a group would have to wait until they are better accommodated for.
Chamber of commerce and tourism visitor centers have information for some of the places with tours.
State atlases mark interesting sites and activities for the traveler and this includes some tours.
No matter where you visit call ahead and make sure they can accommodate you before you go there.
I don’t know. I worked for a large manufacturer, and we deal with other large and small manufacturers, and official tours are really, really quite uncommon. Most of these facilities easily have multiple dozens of people in them.
On the other hand, if it’s related to my business, then I have the luxury of calling up and requesting a tour! But because there aren’t “tour people” as a job in those facilities, I end up tying up a valuable engineer’s time for the duration of my tour.
I’ve also known people to unofficially take family members and invited, out-of-town guests into facilities under the guise that they’re visiting from another facility. It’s important to fully brief them on safety and protocol, though, because these are dangerous places if you don’t know what you’re doing. That probably has a lot to do with the reason that factory tours are not common.
The Hershey plant tour (Hershey, PA) is kind of repetitive, but delicious!
I recently took my scouts on two tours, one of a fiberglass boat builder that builds semi custom power boats in the 36 to 49 foot range, they got to see several in different stages of construction. We also took a tour of a factory about 100 miles from where we live of a factory that makes double braided rope from small stuff to stuff big enough to moor the largest vessels on the water, with good discussion before entering the factory floor about types of construction and materials used to acheive different end results. The Rope factory was featured on John Ratzenburgers Made in America, and the kids may have seen it on TV but it is a different experience to see it first hand and ask questions.
Both were set up due to Personal contacts that I have with the two companies due to my work in the buisness, one I supply parts too, and the other I get parts from.
Factory Tours are indeed cool !
Ah yes, fond memories of going to the Jiffy factory when I was 5. In fact, this is exactly what I remembered when I saw this thread. Jiffy and Kellogg were a couple of the traditional southern-Michigan field trips.