This year's
Harbour Report praises the press shop at Volkswagen‘s Wolfsburg
plant, havingtaken some top positions and proved its outstanding performance.
When it
comes to the Harbour Report, issued by US management consultancy Oliver Wyman,
many automakers are more than happy to keep quiet about their rankings, often
claiming its contents are "confdential" as an excuse for revealing
fugures.
But VW wants to be seen in a good light at the
moment, so any ‘good‘ news is good news.
The Habour
Report compares and assesses a number of items including the press shops of all
the world's key automakers. It also undertakes plant-by-plant assessments. In this study a comparson of "the most productive" automotive
manufacturers is produced. The current report compares 124 press shops of 18
different automakers.
Thomas
Ulbrich, member of the board of management of the Volkswagen brand responsible
for production: "In view of its size and significance in the production of
parts for the high-volume models of the Volkswagen brand, the Wolfsburg press
shop plays a key role within the Group. The outstanding results obtained in the
Harbour Reports confirm the successful development of the Wolfsburg press
shop."
Jens
Herrmann, Wolfsburg plant manager, said: "Since it was commissioned four
years ago, our large-format press has already taken first place in the Harbour
Report three times. This result bears witness to the quality and precision of
the Wolfsburg plant."
Large-format
press line 500 in Hall 1A took first place in the category of transfer XL
presses. The Wolfsburg press shop also performed very well in the category of
progressive die. Press line 810 in Hall 2 once again took second place.
Markus
Lange, manager of the press shop, is equally pleased about the very good
performance of the press shop in fact,
he would be disappointed if it wasn’t.
"Once
again, our highly motivated team has been a key factor in winning these awards,"
he said, proudly.
Every day,
the Wolfsburg press shop processes some 2,600 metric tons of steel sheet and
produces almost half a million body parts. These parts are used for the models
Golf, Golf Sportsvan, Touran and Tiguan as well as for the modular transverse
toolkit (MQB) platform at 20 other plants. 2,000 people are employed in the
Volkswagen Group's largest and oldest press shop
