Volkswagen's Transparent Factory

**eno** · February-05-11, 10:26 PM

Can this type of customer outreach be used here?

http://www.youtube.com/embed/nd5WGLWNllA?rel=0

**Russix** · February-06-11, 04:42 AM

As soon as we start making an all wheel drive luxury Mercury Marauder, with a 6-speed trans and a V12.

**davewindsor** · February-06-11, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by eno

Can this type of customer outreach be used here?

http://www.youtube.com/embed/nd5WGLWNllA?rel=0

The process looks too expensive for the North American market. I googled it and it's $64,000 US for a base model Volkswagen that was pulled from the US market in 2006 because of poor sales due to it being too expensive. http://www.autotrader.com/research/a...volkswagen.jsp

**Wesley Mouch** · February-06-11, 12:23 PM

Yes, its a $64,000 car that the US wasn't ready for.... but the interesting things to me were....

1) Workers who are presumably happy wearing white jump suits vs. the attire at the Rouge Tour.

2) Integrating manufacturing into a city. Now that some suburban/rural factories are sitting vacant it may again be time.

3) Pride in manufacturing. We could use a lot more. [[See Rouge plant again. Good example of 'clean' manufacturing.)

**East Detroit** · February-06-11, 12:44 PM

I wonder how the workers will fare after working on a floor with power induction all day long.

**Wesley Mouch** · February-06-11, 12:56 PM

Originally Posted by East Detroit

I wonder how the workers will fare after working on a floor with power induction all day long.

I would hope the clever people there have them so they only send much power when they detect the cart.

**Whitehouse** · February-06-11, 04:36 PM

I've been there and the similar looking facility in the birthplace of Volkwagen, Wolfsburg, looks fantastic! My team had to play against the local Bundesliga club VFL Wolfsburg [[who would end up champions that season) and in the afternoon we visited the Volkswagen factory. Awesome stuff!

Your car gets delivered with truely not one kilometer on the clock!

**Hamtragedy** · February-07-11, 01:31 AM

Luxury industrial.

**BrushStart** · February-07-11, 02:04 AM

This is an assembly plant. They don't show you where or how the actual components are made- that's the messy part of the process. Here, they are basically putting finished products together like legos or an erector set, but if they showed you where the plastic parts were injection molded or the aluminum casting poured, or the paneling stamped out, it'd be a gritty factory of some kind. Even more so if they showed you the pattern shops, tool and die shops, and mold shops where the real magic takes place. There's a lot of dust and dirt, chemicals and molten furnaces involved in that process. Not so easily kept sterilized, squeaky clean, and open to the public in a glass highrise downtown.

**East Detroit** · February-07-11, 04:33 AM

Here's a video by [[Kelley) Whitehouse showing a sparkly car in a factory tour...

**Dbest** · February-07-11, 09:29 AM

Maybe they could assemble a new GT 40 in a smaller facility like this somewhere downtown in the future. Ford has the most technologically advanced plant in the world, mostly automated. The UAW would NEVER allow them to build something like that in Michigan, no matter how much they were willing to spend in the state. Ford could pull off something like this if they so chose...