Behind The Curtain

The Transparent Factory (Gläserne Manufaktur) or factory made of glass is both a vehicle assembly plant and exhibition space located in Dresden, Germany.  The factory walls are constructed almost completely of glass.  The floors are made of Canadian maple (think: basketball court).  There are no smokestacks, loud noises or toxic byproducts. 

Opened in 2002 production on its 1.5 kilometer assembly line was limited to the Volkswagen Phaeton thru 2016.  Production is now exclusively the electric version of the Golf. There are about 380 employees including about 200 dedicated to assembly.

This facility only does final assembly with stamping, welding and painting occurring at the Zwickau facility. Painted bodies arrive here by truck along with an additional 1200 parts and 34 preassembled components. 

Our minder cautions us not to take photos of the assembly process - as a consequence I'm including some imagery supplied by VW.

Production takes place on two floors of the multistory building using an electric overhead railway to move vehicles between stations on the assembly line. Vehicles are custom-built using a combination of hand work and specialized tools.

Photo - Volkswagen

The floor creeps along at a speed of about one meter per minute with workers standing on the moving floor to remain stationary in relation to the car.   Bins and parts baskets with custom-delivered components for individual cars are delivered by robotic carts  while power tools are housed in pillars for access by the assembly workers.

Photo - Volkswagen

There is a two year wait for a (German) domestically-ordered vehicle from Volkswagen.  None available in the states - although production is ramping-up globally.

The humor highlight of the tour was Braumeister's question about all wheel drive options on a vehicle.  Our minder's lost in translation answer was:  All power come from the butt.

Concept vehicles are shown here including a really cool, all-electric dune buggy.

I want this... 

 

You can learn more by visiting this link.