According to VW, Wolfsburg supposed to be the largest contiguous car factory in the world (about 6 km²). One would perhaps rather contemplated Ford's River Rouge Complex in Dearborn, but that is with 3.8 km² 'only' about half as large. Only in the constructed area of 1,6 km² in Wolfsburg shall fit the Principality of Monaco.
Even someone who lives next to the factory, is not directly in the workplace.
If daily about 3200 new cars in 210 double-deck cars on the rail and about 185 auto transporters by road leave the factory and it is supplied with 100 railway carriages and 910 truckloads, it does make sense already, not only to reflect about green future of car factories.
The VW Group does this as part of 'Think Blue. Factory.', a program that is configured to make automotive production more ecological. Only one aspect is the reduction of energy consumption by 25 percent up to 2018. Thereby helps a little bit e.g. the change-over of factory vehicles to electric operation, because the factory halls are shown 200,000 visitors each year.
In addition to the energy aspect, many other ideas are important to improve the environmental protection. In this context especially in demand ideas from employees, the were already always honoured therefor. The German Federal Government supports with € 15 million the construction of a so-called reference factory, in which find place many innovations (e.g. to Industry 4.0) and supposed to be available for all car manufacturers.
VW Wolfsburg has well above 50,000 employees. Also during factory vacations the production rests not completely. For this purpose are hired additional 3000 holiday workers and trained for their support of the remaining professionals. An ideal opportunity for young people and for example, also working students to get a taste of the world of work.
Currently seems significantly obstructed the Golf production (so far a total of more than 30 million). The Wolfsburg plant cannot cope with the delivery, because obviously too much and special (e-Golf) variants disturb the production process. There are already for some time, 'extra shifts' and a new operations manager.
An enormous change in the manufacturing process is probably to be expected by 3D printing in the longer term. VW seems to want to be present at the top in this field. In the picture above the VW superiors during the assessment of various parts made by 3D printing. Watch the movie to first experiences at VW here. 04/15