Modern Intelligence

As we toured through Italy and Greece, we marveled at how intelligent and talented people were hundreds and even thousands of years ago. They designed and built massive structures of incredible strength and beautiful, detailed design.

Today, we appreciated the expertise of people who design and create modern technology as we toured the Volkswagen Glass Factory where they specialize in assembling the luxury car, Phaeton. The vehicle is carefully hand assembled, with every kind of extra you can imagine. The factory is 4 stories high, with glass walls and Canadian maple floors. There is hardly any noise and everything is spotlessly clean. There are three different assembly lines where everything is digital and robotic. Any heavy lifting is done mechanically. Working conditions are wonderful. Employees are even allowed to leave early on days when there are International soccer finals.

Here are some facts we remember:

-each car they make is pre-ordered and custom made
-each car takes about 30 hours to assemble
-they make about 48 cars per day
-at each station in the assembly line the worker has 19 minutes to complete the task, as opposed to 1or 2 in a regular plant
-the only things done to the vehicle by robotics are engraving the serial number and mounting the body onto the chassis
-the parts are brought in from different cities in Germany
-the assembly line moves around an oval slowly, like a conveyor belt
-parts are delivered to the employee on a robotical cart programmed to go to the specific station
-robots do any heavy lifting
-when the vehicles are complete, they are put into the cylindrical building until they are picked up or shipped
-70% of the vehicles are sold to customers from China
-they are well-known for the customer service experience
-when a customer picks up the vehicle, they go into a special room where the vehicle comes up from the floor on an elevator and a screen opens to reveal it
-customers coming from outside of Dresden can have their whole vacation planned by the company
-some options include, a built in refrigerator in the trunk that can be accessed from the back seat, a "boss" button for the back seat passenger side to push up the front seat if more leg room is desired, any color of paint, they will even match a pink scarf you bring them
-prices range from 70-140 thousand Euros

If you want to see it in action, go to VW Dresden on you tube.